For What & Feeling for Balance - Screening

2 Historical and significant screenings from Artist, Sculptor and film maker Micha Nussinov FOR WHAT An expert well worth the wait GIBSON'S DAY OFF Today: Sun man ROBIN INGRAM - December 9, 1975 IT'S December 9, 1975 ... and the long wait is beginning to tell. Sir John Kerr is waiting. Malcolm Fraser is waiting. And the Duntroon military cadets are waiting. Off camera, all Australia is waiting. December 9 is passing out day at Duntroon ... and it looks touch and go as to who will pass out first. The cadets are waiting to graduate into a career that has promised them action and excitement. Sir John Kerr appears to be waiting for a tomato. Malcolm Fraser appears to be waiting either for lunch or to become the elected PM at next Saturday's elections. Whichever, the prospect is making him burp into the back of his hand. The eyes that are watching them belong to Misha Nussinov. He is a newcomer to Australia and doesn't know what's going on any more than the locals. But he can feel the waiting. And he can feel the tension. And his camera can pick them up, too. Misha Nussinov has produced a film about the long wait. Their long wait, his long wait ...everyone's long wait. It's called, For What? It's the happiest, saddest, most cynical and most optimistic 41 minutes of film I've ever seen. Duntroon, December 9, is just one revolution of Nussinov's emotional carousel. Just one of 41 minutes that each demand an hour's stimulating analysis after it's all over. Nussinov recalls that the tension that day was so great, he felt the nervousness that an assassinmight,just because he was focusing on it. We know now that Sir John Kerr's tomato didn't come that day, anyway. That Malcolm Fraser's election victory—and presumably lunch—did come. But Nussinov's perception is so intensified by his unfamiliarity and impartiality, that there's a startlingpangof sympathy there for Australia. The cadets graduate into independence, initiative and maturity to the strains of God Save The Queen. "It wasn't a contrived emotion," says the filmmaker. "But I realised that this country's young men were graduating into a state of independence thatthecountry itself hadn't." "That's Australia, using a borrowed National Anthem, was unable to make the graduation itself." For what? is an amazingly sensitive and penetrative piece of filmmaking. It was inspired by Nussinov's own wait ... a frustrating bid to break into the Australian film industry. A 29-year-old Israeli, with two and a half years of London Film School experience behind him, hecamehere with his Australian wife, Jenny, after hearing optimistic reports about our emergingfilm industry. "Waiting is a deferment of gratification," says an earnest psychologist in the film. It is Misha Nussinov's celebration of frustration turning into opportunity that gives his film its finalmoodof optimism. What he has filmed is a 41-minute life cycle. Not womb to tomb, but womb to tomb to womb again. A realisation that while someone is waiting to die, someone else is waiting to give birth ... in thiscasea cliff-hanging birth in which we all share the agony and ecstasy. What for? "Nothing," say some bored inner city kids lounging on a sidewalk. "In the early days, it was waiting for Him who was to come," says a Christian clergyman. "Today ... waiting for His return, I suppose." At a kids' birthday party, youngsters are waiting for the jelly and ice cream. Intercut, pensionersata charity canteen are waiting for their one square meal of the day. A young woman is waiting for Mr Right. An older woman with a readymade family is waiting for Mr Right, the second time. All of Sydney, all of mankind, is waiting. Waiting for buses, for kidney transplants, for tattoos to be removed, for the Stock Exchange toopen, forthe starting gates at Randwick to open, for drug withdrawal pains to pass, for boyfriendsto get out of jail. Into 41 minutes, Misha Nussinov has distilled more philosophy than many people absorb in a lifetime. Maybe they're the lucky ones, maybe not. Today the Filmmaker's Cinema at Darlinghurst begins screening this remarkable film. Hopefully, it will eventually find a wider audience. Misha Nussinov is waiting on negotiations. FOR BALANCE Sydney "Sun" — December 9, 1975 Ron Hicks Micha Nussinov in his documentary feature film called Feeling For Balance has been given therarefreedom to film the real situation in a mental hospital right down to a schizophrenic breakdown. The film follows a number of patients undergoing group therapy with a psychologist at theGladesvilleHospital in Sydney. But it also includes cameo appearances by actress Maggie Fitzgibbon who so succinctlydemonstratesthat all of us have traces of schizophrenia (split personality) which can be creativeand positive. In fact, as the film shows, we are all delicately poised on the edge of that relative term, mentalillness.Sometimes personality changes are harmless and even helpful but sometimes they areconsideredbizarre or dangerous — and this is when people are usually committed for care. One young woman, who obviously had been so, mercilessly put down as a child, was so mentallyscarredshe would not let people touch her. She had been so affected by her earlier experiences that she had to be taught how to conductanormal conversation. Another voluntary patient in the group vented his frustration against the insensitivity of societythroughthe other extreme — violence. In a poem he wrote for group therapy, the patient, whose hero was Superman, concluded: “Standfearless,stand straight, for fear is the sign of guilt.” These people exposed themselves, as we all do, and were crucified. They were now too afraidtoface the real world, withdrawing into their own form of protection. But as producer-director Micha Nussinov shows in his sometimes subtle, sometimes heavy butalwaysprovocative symbolism there are many extremes in the so-called “normal” world. He shows that what these patients, and all of us, must strive for is a feeling for balance. Also on the program at Nussinov Gallery from December 16 , will be another film by Mr Nussinov, a graduate from the London Film School, called For What?, which is a fascinating look at life through the time people spend “waiting”. Arts Australian Life’s balancing act By RON HICKS - Australian Arts 26 February 1979