The dark clouds of success
The Age
Thursday July 2, 2009
Sombre themes have never deterred Sydney film director Rowan Woods, writes Sacha Molitorisz. THE director of Little Fish is talking big fish. On a rainy day in Rose Bay, he's discussing dangling a line from the tinny he shares with an actor friend. Just recently, the pair landed a huge flathead. How big? Rowan Woods squints. "About that big," he says, his hands a metre apart.He's probably exaggerating. As a director, though, 49-year-old Woods recently landed some of the biggest fish in Hollywood. For his third film, he travelled to the US to make Winged Creatures, which, despite its low budget, stars Kate Beckinsale, Forest Whitaker, Guy Pearce and Dakota Fanning.Overhead, the clouds are dark and ominous. It appears not to bother Woods, who built his career on unflinching features about the damaged and dangerous. In 1998, he directed The Boys, a terrifying drama starring David Wenham and based on the murder of Anita Cobby. He followed it up in 2005 with Little Fish, in which Cate Blanchett played an former junkie rebuilding her life.Dark and difficult, these two features had little chance of success. And yet they succeeded, finding a sizeable audience and garnering 26 AFI award nominations between them (they won nine, including one for best director).Now, for his third feature, Woods revisits the darkness for a meditative drama about four characters struggling to cope following a shooting. He calls it a companion piece to his first film: whereas The Boys was about the lead-up to a violent crime, Winged Creatures is about the aftermath.It is another bold account of human suffering. And this time it also constitutes a remarkable feat of imagination: Rowan Woods has made Kate Beckinsale look ugly. Well, almost."She's never done trailer trash before," smiles Woods, who cast Beckinsale as a waitress. "She was very devoted to tearing down her beauty."By the time he committed himself, Winged Creatures had already attracted a strong cast and an accomplished producer in Bob Salerno, whose credits include 21 Grams. Raising finance proved trickier. The upside was that Woods had plenty of time to scout locations, and finally found a diner in the San Fernando Valley. In the film, that's where a man with a handgun opens fire.The film is about how the characters cope in the following weeks: Anne (Fanning) turns to God; Charlie (Whitaker) goes on a gambling spree; Dr Laraby (Pearce) starts to make people sick so he can then cure them. Winged Creatures examines post-traumatic stress disorder in all its unusual forms.It's also a powerful indictment of gun culture. "Before the script came along we were confronted as a family by the sound of gunfire in the night," says Woods, who cuts a tall, imposing figure, but turns out to be reflective and softly-spoken. "That's really confronting and shocking when you come from somewhere like Australia."The family of five returned from Santa Monica to Sydney early last year, just in time for Woods' then 12-year-old son to start at the local high school. They've moved into a flat within spitting distance of the harbour."My life is this harbour," he says, standing beside a rack of tinnies. "When we came back, we were determined to live close to the beach or the harbour."Born in Berala in south-west Sydney, Woods grew up in Balmain and Rozelle with saltwater in his ears. As a boy, he wanted to be Australia's answer to Jacques Cousteau. He studied marine biology at Sydney University, but dropped out after a year when he realised he wasn't up to the maths. Then came art school, where Woods "gorged on HECS-free education", finishing with three degrees before completing a one-year course at Australian Film Television and Radio School.Woods' work on The Boys and Little Fish is well known. Less well known are his TV credits. Surprisingly, not all are dark, difficult dramas. Quite the contrary. He has directed episodes of Heartbreak High, Police Rescue, Dogwoman, Farscape and Fireflies. He also directed 3 Acts Of Murder, a telemovie set in 1928 that attracted nearly a million viewers to ABC TV last month.Woods plans to keep balancing feature films with TV work, partly because that's where directors can earn a living. "You don't earn much money in my area of the film game," he says.If his reputation as a director of dark, difficult films is somewhat misleading, it probably won't last long. Woods has a "kids-friendly movie" in development, to be shot in Australia.Meanwhile, he is about to fly to New Zealand to direct episodes of Spartacus, a sci-fi series produced by Sam Raimi's company.Winged Creatures is in cinemas on July 9.
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