David Easteal

The Plains

Edition 2022

Official Selection

180' - 2022 - Road Movie, Drama, Documentary - Dialogue: English

Director: David Easteal With: Andrew Rakowski, David Easteal, Cheri LeCornu, Inga Rakowski

On the Edge

In his challenging feature debut The Plains, Australian filmmaker David Easteal ignores many of the classic rules of cinema. Through the mundanity of life on the road, a great and small human beauty seeps into the film, that can ride along with the 'car cinema' of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi.

Entrancing audiences for three hours with a commuting fifty-something filmed in long takes from the backseat of his company car during rush hour – debutant director David Easteal takes up the challenge. The Plains is a fascinating portrait, in a rear-view mirror, of the lawyer Andrew. He and Easteal used to work in a legal centre in a suburb of the Australian city of Melbourne and during their car rides home a friendship grew. Now, they both play themselves based on their memories. Little by little you get to know Andrew through the conversations with his younger colleague, his 'Mutti' and wife on the phone and even talk shows on the radio. The silences also speak volumes as time slowly passes. The intimacy of the microcosm in the car is only broken by Andrew's own drone footage of 'the plains', the vast plains west of Victoria.

"The 'dead time' of the daily commute comes alive in The Plains, an absorbing documentary-drama hybrid that places viewers in the car of a middle-aged Melbourne lawyer during his drive home from work during the course of a year." - Variety