Kit Guyatt - Films: President Johnson's Visit, Balmain and The Phallic Forest

"Seldom has any tale so patronized its subject; D.H. Lawrence and Fellini barely compete. This work is likely to be studies in discussion groups in 30 years' time - not, unhappily, for its place in Australian filmmaking but as a locus classicus of the quaint, benighted assumptions about female psychology (indeed, about psychology) held by the most articulate young MCPs in their day." - Sylvia Lawson, 'The Australian', May 25, 1972.

 1. President Johnson's Visit 3min, collaboration with Christopher Cordeaux

A comment on U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's 1966 Australian tour, while Australian and American troops fought in Vietnam.

 2. Balmain 26min

An enquiry, at once lyrical and tragic, into the reality of (the inner Sydney suburb of) Balmain in 1969 - an historical, beautiful and ideally located residential suburb threatened with partial extinction by lack of government planning and foresight, and by indifferent to residents' interests. Peter King, 'The Australian' 

3. The Phallic Forest 38min

The story is about Oliver and Julia, he in advertising, she an academic, living in a terrace house which they're renovating, while at the same time their relationship is falling aprt. He starts an affair with someody else and she retreats further into a fantasy world whose sometimes bizarre images the film does its best to recreate.  Sandra Hall, 'The Bulletin' Nov. 7, 1971