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This is Michael Blakemore's Australianised version of 'Uncle Vanya', Chekhov's comedy of frustrated provincial life with its ludicrous but painful self-oppression. It's set in the lovely Hunter Valley of NSW and its verdant pastoral landscape looks gorgeous filmed in saturated painterly colours. The characters are adapted slightly (as is the script) to make the story work for Australia just after the Great War. The cultural moment is the realisation that Australia is going to have to shed its imaginative and political domination by all things English. Blakemore's intelligence and wit and his own keen expatriate's vision are razor-sharp and compassionate. The film analyses the colonial attitudes of his own class and generally charts the fatal inter-locking of provincial insecurity and imperial delusions. Just watch for the hilariously awful sequence starting with a brightly coloured rosella feasting on a flowering tree....Blakemore himself ended up playing the grand writer (Chekhov's Professor) who (supposedly) Made It in England: he gives a precise comical dissection of self-important fatuity. Greta Scacchi is the Helena figure, his trophy wife who stirs up the male hormones. Sam Neill is the sexy Doctor Astrov character: the region's voice of progress but a cynical and disillusioned individual; and Kerry Fox is Sonya, the put-upon daughter who pines for the Doctor but actually keeps the property running. Watch for a young Tom Long in a small role, and the wonderful Googie Withers as the crafty Irish house-keeper who firmly and wisely rules the estate while dishing up to the grand folk endless mutton meals in every tasteless variation. But the star performance for me is the late John Hargreaves as the Vanya character: his extrovert interpretation has to be a career best.As an Australian film 'Country Life'does indeed lack all those 'international' local colour staples of man-eating crocs (or toothy sharks, or killer dingos) - not a psychopathic bush murderer or menacing redneck is to be seen! Instead we see a lush landscape with the mansions of the wealthy rural Australian ruling faction of the era. But it's smart, intelligent and no reverently corseted 'period movie. Fans of adapted Chekhov or of any member of Blakemore's uniformly great cast will adore 'Country Life'; which makes the story what Chekhov called it - a comedy.For a reference point you might like to get hold of the National Theatre video of Chekhov's play in the 1963 production, with the great performer Michael Redgrave at his peak as Vanya and Olivier as the Doctor, plus a flawless cast.
