West of Sunshine Directed by Jason Raftopoulos
West of Sunshine
Directed by Jason Raftopoulos
Starring:Damian Hill, Ty Perham, Arthur Angel, Kat Stewart, Tony Nikolakopoulos
Year: 2017
Country: Australia
Author Review: Roberto Matteucci
"But my children will think I'm a legend."
What are the limits of a gambling addict?
They have no brakes, equal to the behaviour of other addicts such as drugs, sex and alcohol.
Gambling player has an own life. Pleasure is not to win, to have money, to satisfy other needs or dreams; victory is an independent enjoyment, gain for no other deeper purposes.
The diffusion of the gaming business, splitting and spreading in the daily places, has provoked both a quantitative increase and a propagation inside sectors not previously affected.
Why a normal person with family, affections, work could ruin all own life for gambling?
"Research in the field of neuroscience in the last 15 years identifies a common genetic basis, responsible for a defect in the ability to feel pleasure. It would be the inability to feel pleasant emotions in everyday life to push some subjects to seek strong emotions, which some find in gambling, others in drugs, others in both.
[...]
On the other hand, from a personal point of view, a pathological player uses the game as an escape valve against any difficulty of daily life, and that entirely directs on the game and emotions that this causes the management of their emotional states, whether they are anxiety, sadness or depression". (1)
Anxiety, sadness and depression exist also in Melbourne, Australia, the city of Jim, the character of the film West of Sunshine by the director Jason Raftopoulos, presented at the 74th International Venice Film Festival.
Jim is separated. He has a son, Alex, who lives with his wife. We do not know the reasons for the separation but it has certainly happened for the game vice of which he is a slave. Relationships are not good, neither with his wife nor with his teenage son.
He has to go to work but his wife calls him urgently: he has to take care of Alex.
The twenty-four hours of a difficult cohabitation will end with an obvious final catharsis and the awareness of one's condition.
The beginning of the film is a series of scenes to understand the character.
It starts with a detail on the headlight of a car. Jim attributes to his car much value. A vintage car, with expensive price in the market.
The director then moves into Jim's home, a place in disorder like his human condition.
The third aspect is the scene of compulsive obsession in betting.
Then comes the family, the separated wife and son Jim, who, however, does not show affection for his father, in fact, he protests lively because he does not want to go with him.
The boy is right. The father is unable to stop betting and his bad attitude pushes him to sell drugs door-to-door, with the consequence of putting the child at risk.
The shock will bring him to face a dilemma between the old life or choosing a new life.
The director concentrates on the neurotic, psychic, borderline character, with a series of scenes at the limit.
With a discontinuous editing, we see him visit a series of shops with nervousness while Alex observes incomprehensible but well-liked for his sad face.
He has many fit of anger even with his son.
We then move on to a false happiness for a horse race.
It is a concentric disaster, the troubles are feeding, increasing proportionally without stopping: "There is always an alternative" but it is not true.
Fear could make it change and for an instant, it has the boy's understanding.
Many have spoken of Bicycle Thieves - Ladri di biciclette. (2) For Vittorio de Sica the relationship between father and son is the sentimental aspect with the background of a world in shatter just emerged from a disastrous war lost. Jim and Alex are the same as Antonio and Bruno, they try to find each other, but comparing the problems makes the Australian couple losing humanly and stylistically.
