Rotten Kiwis Sleeping Dogs with Smash Palace
Mon 5 September 2016
Sleeping Dogs (1977)
In the late 1970s, New Zealand filmmaking entered the international stage with Sleeping Dogs, a political action-thriller starring Sam Neil and directed by Rodger Donaldson (Cocktail, The Getaway, Dante's Peak). In 1981, Donaldson followed it up with Smash Palace, a relationship action-drama starring Bruno Lawrence. Both films feature the archetypal NZ ‘Man Alone’ raging against a world that – at least in his own mind - leaves him no option but violence.
Sleeping Dogs (1977)
Smith (Sam Neil) is a man on the run, running from a broken marriage. Accidentally caught between two powers - a repressive Government and a violent resistance movement - he becomes a man alone - hunted and hostile, driven by the will to survive.
Smash Palace (1981)
After the break-up of his marriage, Al Shaw (Bruno Lawrence) - once an international Grand Prix racing star, now a tow-truck driver - sets out to get his daughter back from his wife at any cost.
Join LightShow Film Club for an exploration of the troubled Kiwi psyche of the late 20th Century, as told Roger Donaldson’s era-defining double bill, packed with action and angst.
This screening is part of Scalarama 2016.
