Walking on Water will be screened at the JB Were Australian Film Festival in Singapore on Mar. 7 (Fri), 9.30pm and Mar. 12 (Wed), 7pm. Ticketing details are provided at the end of the article.

Walking on Water
Winner of the TEDDY for Best New Feature and the Reader's Prize of the Siegessäule (Berlin's queer magazine) at the Berlin Film Festival 2002
Stars: Vince Colosimo, Maria Theodorakis
Rated: R(A)
Running Time: 90 minutes

Charlie and Anna are nursing their best friend Gavin through the final days of his death from AIDS. In agony, Gavin asks to be given an overdose of morphine, and is soon in a coma. After a few minutes, his tortured breathing continues, and Charlie puts him out of his misery by suffocating him with a plastic bag. So begins Walking On Water, a compelling drama about grief, friendship and growth, and the best Australian film since lantana.

Charlie (Vince Colosimo) is racked with guilt over his role in Gavin's death, and he's soon gorging on left over morphine, fighting with Anna and losing his boyfriend, Frank. Laid-back Charlie's initial solution is to move house and get a new waitering job, but he soon finds out things are a bit darker than that, and that a sea change is needed.

One of the best things about Colosimo's performance, and the film in general, is that no fuss is made about Charlie's homosexuality, or the plot points that put his journey in motion. Charlie's struggles are personal, not political, and his sexuality is matter of fact - incidental. Walking on Water's Charlie is "Rex" (Colosimo's macho-doctor role in hit Australian TV series The Secret Life Of Us) minus the self-esteem and the medical degree.

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This isn't a film about "all of us" and how "we" must face AIDS, gay life, euthanasia, etc, it's about the characters on the screen and their unique challenges, and that's all. The hot topics of the plot are relegated to the background - a welcome step forward from the Sally Jesse Raphael atmosphere of films like Philadelphia and American Beauty.

We get to know the characters as we get to know people in real life, gradually, piece by piece, and this is what makes them so compelling. The film is a third over before we're even certain that Charlie and Frank are lovers, and worked out how Anna fits into the picture. We aren't sure if we like them, if we agree with them, but we're always interested in them, because they keep us on our toes by acting unexpectedly.

They're not Tom Hanks style robots, ravaged by HOLLYWAIDS, or androids like the Aboriginal girls in Rabbit-Proof Fence - engineered for shock effect, and public sympathy for a good cause. They are real, and mercifully free of the eccentricity that normally plagues Australian screenwriters. There isn't a quirky, ocker character in sight, and even Australian stage and screen veteran Judi Farr surprises with her threatening and complicated performance as Gavin's hardened mother.

Walking on Water is an outstanding drama that's full of questions, short on answers, and overflowing with emotion.

Walking on Water will be screened at the JB Were Australian Film Festival in Singapore on Mar. 7 (Fri), 9.30pm and Mar. 12 (Wed), 7pm. Tickets are available from Feb. 21 from either the Golden Village Grand box-office, on-line at www.gv.com.sg or the booking hotline 1900 912 1234.

For more information call the Singapore Film Society hotline 90-170-160 or log on to www.sfs.org.sg