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Synopsis
While scouting locations for a university project, Eva crosses paths with Mia; later, they meet again at a house party, and an intense friendship soon forms between the introverted student filmmaker and the inscrutable but magnetic performer. As the pair becomes ever more entwined, so does the supernatural begin to entangle with the everyday, revealing the cracks between memory and make-believe, reality and fantasy. All the while, Eva seeks to better understand her friend – and her own self – leading her deeper into the surreal rabbit hole that is Mia’s life.
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MIFF 2022- Film #7
Sometimes it's fun writing a negative review when you're trashing a corporate product or the delusional mess of a self-indulgent auteur. But when it's a local, independent production whose passionate cast and crew were present at the screening, there's no joy in explaining why a movie doesn't work. Unfortunately, despite its technical prowess where both the sound design and costumes are very well-done, Petrol features a subpar narrative filled with poorly written dialogue and derivative attempts at ambiguity and surrealism.
Petrol insists that the enigmatic Mia is the most charismatic person ever but we're simply told this without feeling her unique presence; she curates a so-so art exhibition and does some vampiric roleplay on the beach…
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"Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it." – Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
It's a shame that MIFF's program notes have attempted to sell Lodkina's film as a piece of dark millennial quirk, calling it "the lovechild of Round the Twist and David Lynch", leading to the mass misinterpretation of what is really Rivette's Duelle mushed into a deliberately messy and and diarist portrayal of early adulthood social complications. Confounding in its insistence on doubling-down on certain thematic details while leaving others a…
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can guarantee no other film at miff will provide the fleeting spectacle of seeing the back of my head projected on an imax screen.... dreams do come true!!!!
alena lodkina is one of the most exciting aussie filmmakers to crop up in ages, but if you saw strange colours then you already knew that. obsessed with the way she so precisely captures the soul of these rich, insular worlds on screen, and the myopic characters inside them who yearn for purpose. incredible casting choices and images on display - genuinely remarkable to see an aussie drama with actual fucking style, complete with beautifully alienating compositions and the most alluring zooms i've seen all year.
if the q&a is anything to go by, maybe the key to making one of the best films about melbourne is to fundamentally find it ugly lol
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“Lemme chuck an LED on this” while filming a bush is the most relatable film school thing captured in cinematic history
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A real banger of a movie - so incredibly energising to watch supreme talent on full display. A GOATed masterpiece by epic cinema Chads. Extremely staunch and low-key genius. Big respect.
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A little bit uhh… Naarm cinematic universe. Everyone is bisexual and boring and the parties look like they fuckin’ suck.
What does it mean to be an empty vessel guided solely by vague ideals of creative integrity? Not a whole lot — though there’s a confounding sense of compassion for this aimlessness at the heart of Lodkina’s POV. This conflict is coyly nudged at throughout without too much presupposition to give us an easily digestible takeaway. Like we’re just a couple notches off satire. Maybe this hits different if ur an aspiring “self-made” artist?
Soooooooo crazy to watch this tonight in my apartment across from Flagstaff Gardens and see the park looking back at me on my telly. Cinema.
Best Andréas cameo of the fest.
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Makes Melbourne look spooky and mysterious and that’s no mean feat.
Kai nudged me when our friend Andréas was on screen in the background of a party scene and I gasped like it was a jump scare.
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It’s always a bit cute watching a film made in your home city, spotting all the familiar locations — some even just down the road from your own home… That’s about all I can say in favour of “Petrol”. 😬
While this is clearly a very independent film made by a team of passionate emerging creatives, it’s just such a bland and boring watch sadly.
The dialogue is bordering on atrocious at times and the two principal leads aren’t compelling (or strong) enough actors to make it work — especially Lynch, who is either just gravely miscast, or I dare say, cannot act a lick otherwise. The film seems to think the character of the ‘mysterious’ Mia is fascinating enough…
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I've banged on about this elsewhere, but I'll do so again: it is such a pleasure and a relief to see contemporary Australian cinema being released that doesn't fall into one of the three main categories that we've had to endure for what seems like at least a decade or so, those being:
a) prestige period dramas that grapple with our colonial legacy. Yep, these are important and let's see more of them from First Nations filmmakers, but they're not the only stories we need to be telling,
b) gritty crime dramas and psychological thrillers about criminals, seemingly popularised in an effort to combat our national/global perception as easy-going, laid back larrikins. Animal Kingdom killed Yahoo Serious, and
c) polished,…
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Reminded me so much of Celine and Julie Go Boating in the way it drifts through fantasy with such tender play.
Lodkina is one of the brightest filmmakers right now and surely a future great of our industry, as is the film's lead Nathalie Morris.
The style and technique made this so easy to sink into.
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Lost between self-loathing and actualisation. A movie filled with gorgeous imagery with an especially keen eye for making Melbourne mysterious and foreboding (peaking with the stunning shots of Flagstaff gardens at night, possums and imposing skyline in the same frame), and admirably few resolutions or answers. It’s like floating in discontent, like how I often felt at arts school. I wished for just a little more genuinely freaky payoff but I respect that the overall low-key simmer is part of the project.
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One of several great films about the space between sisters. Also scathingly funny, tender without being nice (this is the ideal), and most importantly, full of those gratifyingly bad vibes and ESP rumblings that are, for me, the juice. Another encouraging reason to be cheerful about the future of The (well maybe more like an) Australian Cinema. My major recommendation for screen funding bodies would be more money for stuff like this and less for direct to the cultural dustbin productions where underpaid VFX people are sacrificed at the altar of James Corden's fursona or whatever the fuck
