$9.99, an Australian-Israeli joint production, represents an interestingly intuitive marriage of national talents. Etgar Keret, whose pieces of short prose were the foundation for the script, is an Israeli writer who seamlessly blends magical realism and black humour into his offbeat stories. Meanwhile, the poorly-funded Australian film industry is no stranger to quirky low-budget productions, especially in the realm of animation: the Leunig TV shorts, Harvey Krumpet, and The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello come to mind. However, the Australian vocal talent (including Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia) really cements the setting in the Southern Hemisphere and leaves you feeling the Israeli film commission didn’t quite get as represented in the film as they should have.
The film follows the interconnected stories of an ensemble of characters who share an apartment block in a generically dull city. One such story concerns a gifted but unemployable young man who sends away for a book on the meaning of life featured in a catalogue: only $9.99. Another is about an old man so desperate for human contact he drives telemarketers to hang up on him. And we watch a repossessor, enamoured with his supermodel girlfriend, go to extraordinary lengths to please her. It’s the sort of whimsical experience you’d expect from a mature stop-motion film: a warts-and-all portrayal of human fallibility, which encourages us to empathise rather than judge.
Running at about 78 minutes, $9.99 is a short but enjoyably sedate experience, and serves well as an introduction to Etgar Keret’s style. His sense of humour doesn’t quite translate to screen—which is also evident in the
Did I mention it features an old man with enormous wings?
