Zone 39 | |
---|---|
Directed by | John Tatoulis |
Written by | Deborah Parsons |
Produced by | Colin South |
Starring | Peter Phelps William Zappa |
Cinematography | Peter Zakharov |
Edited by | Peter Burgess |
Music by | Burkhard Dallwitz |
Distributed by | Roadshow (Australia) Beyond Films (international) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
Budget | $4 million [1] |
Box office | A$21,976 (Australia) [2] |
Zone 39 (The Zone) is a 1996 Australian science fiction psychological drama film directed by John Tatoulis. It stars Carolyn Bock, Peter Phelps and William Zappa, and runs for 93 minutes. [3]
The film tells the story of a future where the environment has been ravaged, leaving the world desolate. Two surviving factions, the New Territories and the Federal Republics, have been at war for 40 years. Finally, they have agreed to peace terms thanks to the efforts of the Central Union (CU). One of the security experts for the CU, Anne (Bock), decodes the encrypted messages of her boss, only to discover that one of the security zones has suffered a deadly contamination. Mysteriously, she dies shortly thereafter, leaving her soldier husband Leo (Phelps) devastated. [4]
To recuperate, Leo is assigned to guard duty at the border outpost named Zone 39. The remainder of the film deals with Leo's struggle to cope with isolation and the death of his wife. [4] She appears to him in hallucinations, perhaps brought on by the tranquillizers he has been taking. [5]
In Zone 39, I was exploring a couple of things. One was the way in which a person deals with grief, the loss of a loved on. I truly believe that someone doesn't die until we stop thinking about that person. I think once we forget that person, once that person ceases to live in our memories, then that person is truly dead. Often it takes a long time for that person to truly die in people's hearts. I wanted to explore this theme in an environment that I think we're heading towards, one of being like a society that is particularly unfriendly to the individual and particularly isolates the individual and controls that individual. [6]
The film was shot over seven weeks from late October to early December 1995 around inner city Melbourne and in Crawfords’ Melbourne studios, and the salt pan around Woomera, South Australia for the desert scenes.
Richard Burton Matheson was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres.
Sandy Cheeks is a fictional character in the American animated comedy television series SpongeBob SquarePants and the Nickelodeon franchise of the same name. She is voiced by Carolyn Lawrence and first appeared in the episode "Tea at the Treedome", which premiered on May 1, 1999. She was created and designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg who is also the creator of the series. Sandy is portrayed as an intelligent anthropomorphic flying squirrel who wears an astronaut-like diving suit and lives underwater.
Peter Graves was an American actor who portrayed Jim Phelps in the television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973 and in its revival from 1988 to 1990. His elder brother was actor James Arness. Graves also played airline pilot Captain Clarence Oveur in the 1980 comedy film Airplane! and its 1982 sequel Airplane II: The Sequel.
HM Prison Pentridge, better known as Pentridge Prison, was an Australian prison established in 1851 in Coburg, Victoria. The first convicts arrived at the gaol in 1851. The facility closed on 1 May 1997, although some of the heritage-listed buildings still stand.
Frederick Wiseman is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is primarily about exploring American institutions. In 2017, The New York Times called him "one of the most important and original filmmakers working today".
The two-person rule is a control mechanism designed to achieve a high level of security for especially critical material or operations. Under this rule, access and actions require the presence of two or more authorized people at all times.
Suburban Gothic is a subgenre of Gothic fiction, art, film and television, focused on anxieties associated with the creation of suburban communities, particularly in the United States and the Western world, from the 1950s and 1960s onwards.
Queen of the Damned is a 2002 horror film directed by Michael Rymer from a screenplay by Scott Abbott and Michael Petroni, and based on the 1988 novel The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice, the third novel of the book series The Vampire Chronicles, although the film contains many plot elements from the novel's 1985 predecessor, The Vampire Lestat. A stand-alone sequel to Interview with the Vampire (1994), the film stars Stuart Townsend, Aaliyah in her final film, Marguerite Moreau, Vincent Pérez and Lena Olin. Townsend and Matthew Newton replaced Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas in the roles of Lestat and Armand, respectively.
Bianca Chiminello is an Australian model and actress best known for her role as Jenavian Charto on the television series Farscape. She is also known for her role in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.
Money Movers is a 1978 Australian crime action drama film written and directed by Bruce Beresford. The film was based on the 1972 novel The Money Movers by Devon Minchin, founder of Metropolitan Security Services. The story deals loosely with two real-life events, the 1970 Sydney Armoured Car Robbery where A$500,000 was stolen from a Mayne Nickless armoured van, and a 1970 incident when A$280,000 was stolen from Metropolitan Security Services' offices by bandits impersonating policemen.
Travelling North is a 1987 Australian film directed by Carl Schultz and starring Leo McKern, Julia Blake, Graham Kennedy and Henri Szeps. Based on an original 1979 play of the same name by David Williamson, it is one of Williamson's favourite movies based on his works. The act of "travelling north" as used in the title, in the context of the southern hemisphere in which the film and its original play are set, denotes transitioning from the colder, business-dominated southern regions of the Australian continent to the notionally more relaxed and warmer subtropical or tropical northern regions such as northern New South Wales and ultimately, far north Queensland.
Heart Beat is a 1980 American romantic drama film written and directed by John Byrum, based on the autobiography by Carolyn Cassady. The film is about seminal figures in the Beat Generation. The character of Ira, played by Ray Sharkey, is based on Allen Ginsberg. The film stars Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, and John Heard.
Color Me Dead is a 1969 Australian thriller directed by Eddie Davis, starring American actors Tom Tryon, Carolyn Jones and Rick Jason. It is a remake of the 1950 film D.O.A.. Due to the failure on renewing copyright of D.O.A., the content of D.O.A. became the property of United States public domain. Thus, the content of Color Me Dead could be exactly the same as D.O.A.
The Rushing Tide is a 1927 Australian silent film about the search for a hoard of diamonds. It was not a success at the box office and is considered a lost film.
Sympathy in Summer is a 1971 film directed by Antony I. Ginnane when he was a 19-year-old university student. It was partly financed by Melbourne University Film Society and was heavily financed by the films of Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut and Alain Resnais.
In Too Deep is a 1989 erotic thriller film.
The survival film is a film genre in which one or more characters make an effort at physical survival. The genre focuses on characters' life-or-death struggles, often set against perilous circumstances. Survival films explore the human will to live, individual motivations, and personal desires, prompting audiences to reflect on broader aspects of humanity and personal values. They balance realism and believability with slow-burning suspense to maintain a sense of urgency. While some survival films may have epic scopes and lengthy running times, their effectiveness lies in creating an atmosphere where every moment poses a passive threat to the protagonist's existence.
Miles Howard-Wilks is an Australian artist. While working primarily as a painter, Howard-Wilks is also a ceramicist and animator and has worked in the Arts Project Australia studio since 2000. His diverse subject matter explores themes such as the Australian landscape, seascapes, and Australian Rules Football. With a fine attention to detail and a special interest in oceanic and environmental imagery, Howard-Wilks' works have been widely exhibited both Australia-wide and internationally. His works are held within many collections, most notably at the National Gallery of Australia and the Museum of Contemporary Art. He is viewed as an important figure in outsider art in Australia.
Arthouse musical is a combination of an art film and a film musical.