Exposure

Director: Bonnie Moir

16 June 2024

See

Sydney photographer Jacs Gould (Alice Englert) returns home to Port Kembla for the funeral of her friend Kel (Mia Artemis). While grappling with her grief, boundaries up against her mother (Essie Davis) Jacs begins to investigate the men she suspects of being responsible, from friend (Thomas Weatherall), former film from Bali (Sean Keenan) and local guy Mick (George Mason).

Think

Technically a miniseries of 6 episodes, it premiered at Sydney Film Festival in a single screening. I’m glad to support local productions, especially ones executed as skillfully as Exposure. The industrial foreboding Port Kembla is like a lot of south coast Australia, set by the sea that’s serene and yet confronting in public places being unwelcoming. Yet it’s the unknown of what happens behind closed doors there that is unnerving. 

Feel

It’s sickening to see the culpability of men. And the way women see them. Intimate partner relations can become corrupted when not respectful, whether by deliberate acts or involuntary omissions. Mistakes misconstrued as misunderstandings. It’s this gray zone that Jacs dwells taking beautiful black and white photos. At times it reminded me of Lynne Ramsey’s Morvern Callar in how uncompromising it was in its vision. Switching from violent fantasies to harsh realities. Jacs hates the men that did bad things to Kel, but she also wants their approval. The complexity of her own feelings of being reviled yet drawn to that which disgusts her offers no easy answers, but questions worth sitting with.