Lantana (2001)

July 8, 2001, release date (Sydney Film Festival)

Directed by Ray Lawrence

Screenplay by Andrew Bovell

Based on Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell

Music by Paul Kelly

Edited by Karl Sodersten

Cinematography by Mandy Walker

Anthony LaPaglia as Leon Zat

Geoffrey Rush as John Knox

Barbara Hershey as Valerie Somers

Kerry Armstrong as Sonja Zat

Rachael Blake as Jane O’May

Vince Colosimo as Nik D’Amato

Russell Dykstra as Neil Toohey

Daniella Farinacci as Paula D’Amato

Peter Phelps as Patrick Phelan

Leah Purcell as Claudia Weis

Glenn Robbins as Pete O’May

Produced by Australian Film Finance Corporation, MBP, New South Wales Film and Television Office, Jan Chapman Films

Distributed by Palace Films

I thought Lantana was wonderful when I saw it in the theater just a little over fifteen years ago, which is long enough for me to have forgotten many of the twists and turns in the plot. I enjoyed watching it on DVD for the second time. Lantana is about betrayal and grief and the effects of both.

The title comes from a plant that is considered an invasive species in Australia. The spread of lantana is aided by the fact that their leaves are poisonous to most animals. I thought it was an appropriate metaphor for the betrayal and grief that are central themes in the film. For some of the characters, betrayal and grief spread and poison their relationships so that they invite even more grief into their lives.

The film opens with a black background, with white then color type. The sounds of insects and birds begin the soundtrack. The type, which introduces the title of the film and the main actors, jumps on the screen, giving the impression of nervousness. Color vegetation comes up through the black background, and the camera pans over it. Then the camera pauses and delves deeper into the brush, and the screen fades to black again. Music starts with a piano chord, and color vegetation comes back into view, but it’s different this time. Almost immediately, the camera “discovers” a bloody foot. It pans over a woman’s dead body, and then moves back to give the whole screen to it.

From that point onward, almost anything can happen in Lantana. The music is eerie and haunting. It emphasizes the unease in the characters and creates it for the viewer. The special feature “The Nature of Lantana” on the DVD mentions that most of the music was created specifically for the film, and it works perfectly to create an uneasy atmosphere. The same feature on the DVD mentions that almost all the lighting is natural; very little of it is artificial light. Both the music and the lighting bring the viewer right into the emotions at the heart of the story.

Everyone’s lives intersect in some way. It sounds like an unusual, maybe even contrived plot device at first, but some of the characters already know each other. It’s the viewer who is a newcomer, and it’s the missing woman, Valerie Somers, who seems to draw everyone into the center of the story. Leon Zat, the detective investigating her disappearance, is feeling numb, and he admits as much later in the film. But he starts to feel doubt, worry, and angst when he realizes how betrayals, which seem small at first, might be affecting his marriage. Some of the characters converse about profound situations; one in particular is the loss of a child to murder. The strain that the death of a child puts on a marriage leads to more grief, which ripples out to affect the characters and the plot of the film.The difficulty in dealing with grief has a direct effect on the plot and some of the characters’ actions.
 

Everyone has secrets in Lantana. The only characters who don’t have secrets seem to be the children, but even one of them lies to keep his family together. And who can blame him? As soon as viewers, including me, ask that kind of question, they become a little bit complicit, too—but not completely because it is almost impossible to predict what the characters will do or where the plot will go. But the film is always true to the characters, and it’s wonderful to follow their stories to their natural and realistic conclusions.