Dust Off The Wings

Dust Off The Wings is set amongst Bondi beach culture and is a thought provoking, fresh and confronting new Australian film.

It absolutely reeks of the famous "f" word as this film should, because Dust Off The Wings smells strongly of authenticity, and surfies aren't demure. I'm sure that many of the actors are playing themselves.

Kate Ceberano's new hubby in real life, Lee Rogers directed and produced Dust Off The Wings. His mate Ward Stevens co-stars in and helped pay for the movie by selling his beloved old Merc after it they had finished using it in the film.

Dust Off The Wings stars Ward Stevens, Lee Rogers and Kate and Phil Ceberano as well as Simon Lyndon, the murderer from Black Rock. And they all do very well indeed in a movie that is both raw and sophisticated.

Lee (Lee Rogers) is getting married. He's been screwing around (literally) in Bondi for years, along with all of his mates, and is pretty worried about committing to one woman and settling down.

Now if Lee and his mates have been sewing wild oats, or less politely, fucking everything they could, then they must have been doing it with someone! And it turns out that Lee's prospective missus hasn't been the chaste lass Lee thought she had been.

Lee's doubts become a hangover induced paranoia.

Dust Off The Wings was inspired by the video of the real life wedding of Kate Ceberano and Lee Rogers and in particular by the ambivalent comments made by the wedding guests about the marriage.

And those comments would have been especially cynical I would imagine amongst the trendy Ceberano set in these selfish days; a social set who's marriage and relationship experience would be strongly coloured by the cynicism born of divorce, self centredness and broken hearts.

The men are painted as the scoundrels in Dust Off The Wings, and their love affair with cold hearted sex, and the quick fix of surf, drugs, little work and casual relationships rings as true as our ever rising suicide rate.

Everyone is a victim in Dust Off The Wings but there is sometimes an overwhelming tide of hatred for women. The term "slut" is used particularly viciously in the film and used tellingly by the actor Simon Lyndon who must be in danger of being type caste after his role in Black Rock.

The women respond to these taunts passively, and are only conciliatory, in a film that largely gives the men's side of the story.

Dust Off The Wings is accurate. I know plenty of men who have these sorts of attitudes to women. Learning to really care for others is a quality that many (both men and women) never learn, but films like Dust Off The Wings serve to focus our attention, clear the mind and also to entertain.

Dust Off The Wings has a serious subplot but keeps well away from being a dirge by using a light hearted script, a sun and surf beach culture slant, and a particularly effervescent sound track which includes poignant numbers like "Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am" which was penned by former Cairns lad Quan Yeomans from Regurgitator.

Young Quan used to visit my children at my home years ago! Oh how the young change!