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  Film: Molokai June 16, 2002 Reporter : Peter Thompson Peter's Verdict - the powerful story of Father Damien's work will have wide appeal. Director - Paul Cox Genre - drama Video: broadband  We like to imagine that modern science has banished disease — or will do so next week. The truth is more complicated. Many epidemics still rage unchecked, especially in poor countries: tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis and so on, not to mention the scourges of famine and overpopulation. But for us in the so-called developed world, it now takes a large dose of imagination to get in touch with the raw fear that surrounded our forbearers a hundred years ago. That's where Molokai: The Story of Father Damien takes us. It's a tale of extraordinary courage in the face of the unknown.Hawaii in 1872 bristles with colonial charm but it hides at least one dark secret. Leprosy is endemic and incurable and people are terrified of it. The British administration has taken the radical step of banishing sufferers to a remote location. So the first signs of the disease are a sentence of exile and inevitable death. The condemned do not go willingly to Molokai. It's well known that conditions on the island are frightful. Although it has been slow to move, the Catholic Church decides the abandoned parish must be revived and the bishop calls for volunteers.  And so begins the journey that will cost Father Damien his life but will eventually make him a national hero in his native Belgium and a name that will echo around the world.Leo Mckern: "I learned about Father Damien, yes, when I was a schoolboy because he was closer, I'm a very old man now, and he was closer to my schooldays than modern children. You ask a young person, even a university student nowadays, about Father Damien, they've never heard of him." Leo McKern is one of the Australians Paul Cox added to his distinguished international cast. In the title role, he enlisted David Wenham who demonstrates impressive depth and power as the dedicated priest. David Wenham: "He was a simple man who had a faith that was so strong that it allowed him to achieve incredible things against enormous odds and to help so many people in doing so." Molokai: The Story of Father Damien is the most expensive production ever mounted out of Belgium. The problems were immense, compounded by the decision to shoot most of the film in Kalaupapa, the settlement on Molokai where the story actually took place.  Paul Cox: "We stood on holy ground, you could feel it there. The place is one big graveyard. People lived horrible lives and died horrible deaths. And somebody came there to make their lives a little bit more worthwhile. And to stand on that very ground and to make this film was quite a privilege, I would say, for all of us."One of his collaborators was Peter O'Toole as Williamson, a medical worker who has contracted the disease while working in Hawaii. Not in the best of health himself these days, O'Toole well remembers hearing about Father Damien as a schoolboy. Peter O'Toole: "He was held up to me by one priest in particular as a figure who took on the whole business of the irritations and the stupidities and the crassness of bureaucracy." Damien's struggle to win basic care and respect for his flock puts him in conflict with the church and with the prime minister who correctly surmises that conditions on Molokai might be used by the Americans as an excuse for seizing the islands.  The script is written by John Briley, who won an Academy Award for Gandhi and also wrote Cry Freedom. He structures the film well, giving due consideration to the terrible impact of the tragedy on the Hawaiian people. Cate Ceberano is Princess Liliukalani, giving expression to the suffering caused not only by leprosy itself but also by exile and the taboo on touching.This is one of those stories that would be too contrived as pure fiction. The awareness that it's based in reality gives it inescapable power. Through it all, Father Damien burns with awe-inspiring determination to restore some measure of dignity to those around him. The onset of the disease is met with simple fortitude. Paul Cox: "I think in the end, you life has to be, or, at least you should try to make it an act of love and he certainly did do that. And also he's the sort of hero we desperately need in our times when we tend to celebrate the wrong gods, the wrong heroes we have." Paul Cox's reputation rests in part on his attention to music which is used to great effect in all his films. In Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, Paul Grabowsky and Wim Mertens find rich dimensions in Polynesian music.  Paul Cox: "The story will tell itself. I just hope that it touches people. I think it's the most accessible film I've ever been involved in."Molokai was shot in 1998 and it had an unhappy outcome. Paul Cox was sacked and the producers cut the film themselves. Its release in Belgium was a dismal failure and it was roundly attacked there by critics and others. Subsequently, the financiers re-instated the director and the film has been put back the way Cox intended in the first place. Obviously, it's strong medicine. Admirers of Paul Cox's work will need no encouragement but it has much to recommend it to a wider audience. David Wenham, in particular, is outstanding. I doubt he's done anything better. |
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