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Set against the backdrop of modern-day Sydney, this heist-style thriller involves four politicised women from varying backgrounds, who conspire to sabotage the research programme of a multi-national firm, Utero, which is engaged in reproductive engineering. One of the women loses her diary which contains information and diagrams about the raid only a few days to count down. Will the diary fall into the wrong hands leading to the detection of the women before they have a chance to complete their mission? As the tension mounts, so the wider context of the women's lives as mothers, lovers and providers is also shown under strain indicating the many other considerations women have to take into account when embarking on any form of public activity.
From it's release date in 1984, had this played nightly for a year at the glorious Carlton Movie House aka 'The Blues BugHouse' [bed or crabs], my prediction is not only would it have been an evening sell-out, but would also have made a very tidy profit for each & every person (or Collective) associated with it.
Right movie, right time & right place - I learned in the Introduction that this was one of the very first movies to determinedly succeed in having an all-female Cast & Crew.
I spotted Tracey Mann in it, so for all the original Joan Ferguson era Prisoner fans it's worth a look. It's also extremely apparent that it was made on a very, very petite budget.
this is a historic australian film with a lesbian cast. our protagonists juggle parenthood and their day jobs to plan and execute a midnight raid on a biotech firm called Utero that works in reproductive science, a company which they suspect has secret nefarious motives.
that sounds cool and it partly is, but it's lost a lot of emotional impact because watching it now in 2024, i fundamentally don't understand what the feminist objection to IVF was in the 1980s. this is not an issue i've heard anyone talk about in my lifetime. the characters in this talk about their fears that "a small group of scientists will be able to control human reproduction." they compare IVF to nuclear weapons. this just sounds like TERF-adjacent tinfoil hat stuff to me now.
i loved that all these lesbians planning this super dangerous illegal sabotage heist on an ivf clinic spend a lot of the film squabbling about domestic issues and also hoping that maybe someone else will do the heist. it's hard being a dyke warrior fighting back against institutional violence and biotechnology when you're also trying to have hobbies. the heist sequence itself is so fucking impressive – really tense, tightly structured, with moments of humour, and highly technical in a way you can grasp because they've discussed the intricacies of their plan enough throughout the film that you recall it when they're finally carrying it out. i'd also love to know where they filmed it because the hospital set is…
This fifty-minute Australian film from Susan Lambert tells the story of a lesbian couple who decide to rob a business to make their lives better.
ON GUARD is a pretty entertaining film that very easily could have been turned into a feature and held your interest just the same. The film manages to be well-paced and I thought Lambert handled the material quite well. I especially liked how the lesbian couple isn't treated with gloves or tried to be made sexual. The couple just come across like any other couple and this is a good thing. Apparently, the film was a bit controversial when it was first released but it plays very naturally today.
Set against the backdrop of modern-day Sydney, this heist-style thriller involves four politicised women from varying backgrounds who conspire to sabotage the research programme of a multi-national firm, Utero, which is engaged in reproductive engineering.
One of the women loses her diary which contains information and diagrams about the raid only a few days to count down. Will the diary fall into the wrong hands leading to the detection of the women before they have a chance to complete their mission?
As the tension mounts, the wider context of the women’s lives as mothers, lovers, and providers is also shown under strain indicating the many other considerations women have to…
