GIVEAWAY: Thanks to Umbrella Entertainment, we have one Blu-Ray of Head On to give away. Simply email your name, age and postal address to headon@jamesonandco.com, with the subject ‘Head On giveaway’. The first entry will be selected and the winner will be notified by email. You must be 18 years or over to enter. Entries close 31 December, 2021 and winner will be notified by 4 January 2022.
When “Head On” hit screens in 1998, it went on to change the lives of its creators as a result of the prominence it got, and also helped shift perceptions.
The film, which tells the story of Ari, a 19-year-old homosexual Greek-Australian living in St Kilda in Melbourne, gained notoriety due to its sexual explicitness. The work, based on Christos Tsiolkas’ 1995 novel, “Loaded”, included a graphic masturbation scene performed by lead actor Alex Dimitriades and numerous sex scenes.
It received mixed reviews from critics, making a name for itself internationally as a work of art, with awards in Los Angeles and San Francisco as well as screenings at the Cannes Film Festival.
Within the Greek Australian community, intergenerational dialogue was opened.
Twenty-three years on, director Ana Kokkinos shared her feelings about the film.
Looking back on this masterpiece, how has Head On aged?
I watched the film again recently because I was asked to do an audio commentary for the blu-ray re-release. It’s a film of its time and yet timeless. I think it’s aged well for a number of reasons. It’s a bold and visceral roller coaster ride of a film that has a propulsive energy, just like Ari. The look and feel of the film is saturated in colour and contrast, so cinematically, it’s rich, dense and a joy to watch. The film isn’t structured in a conventional way because we only experience the world through Ari’s eyes and we privilege his point of view. We’re thrown into the life of Ari as a character who moves through an urban landscape in the course of one day and night, much like a modern-day odyssey. It’s got a great soundtrack. The politics of the film remain just as relevant today as they did back then; racism, homophobia and the position of marginalised cultures, to name a few. It deals with youthful rebellion and the inevitable questioning of orthodoxies when your young and searching for answers, when you don’t quite know how you fit it and what your place is in the world. But I also think the performances pull you in and hold you there. It’s a bravura performance from Alex who carries the film. But every performance is deep, truthful, beautiful and nuanced. It still packs a punch emotionally. I’m still struck by how many people who regularly approach me, particularly young people, tell me that the film changed their lives.
The film at the time opened up dialogue between the older and younger generations, what was the result of that? Did it heal or divide?
When the film was initially released it divided the younger and older generation. Once some of the heat went out of the controversy surrounding the film, I started hearing that many young Greek Australians found that Head On opened up a space for them to talk to their parents in a new way. It allowed them to be more honest. For many, it reflected that acute sense of growing up with family expectations that didn’t enable them to express themselves, to be free from having to carry a certain kind of cultural baggage. Art always has the capacity and the potential to do amazing things for people, for cultures. Films can speak to us profoundly. Head On did that and in the process it helped to change a culture.
READ ON: Where is Ana Kokkinos?
Ari’s generations are now the age of the parents. Has intergenerational conflict softened?
That’s a difficult question for me to answer. From my own experience, I’m guessing that it has but I also feel that a lot of the things Ari was dealing with in relation to his parents remain to some extent, still relevant. Despite the gains made in acceptance of LGBTQI and diverse cultures in the wider mainstream community, scratch the surface and we’ve gone forwards and backwards culturally and socially. There’s a veneer of progress and change, but I don’t know how deep seated it really is.
READ ON: “Head On”: The film that helped change Australian culture
Did the film at the time change the way in which Greeks were perceived in Anglo culture?
I know that many Anglo audiences appreciated the film because they were able to get an insight into Greek Australian culture in a way they’d never seen before. Suddenly, they were the outsiders looking in at this world. It undoubtedly changed but the biggest change was inside the Greek Australian community itself.