MIFF Play #3: THE LOST CITY OF MELBOURNE

Melbourne was built up from its rustic start to a gold rush opulence with city streets that buzzed with life overseen by magnificent architecture that matched ornate Victorian style with the best stone of the local quarries. The city boasted a thriving theatre scene that was housed in splendour and then extended it to the early and enthusiastic adoption of cinema (a map has them dotting the landscape like 7/11s do now). But everything changes all the time. At the approach of major events like the 1956 Olympics the Victorian era look was considered cringeworthy against the kind of steel and glass towered metropolises of the U.S.A. and elsewhere. By contrast ol' Marvellous was getting daggy. Enter the nemesis of dag that was the wrecking industry and money to pour into skyscrapers and decades of destruction were gone before the thought of preservation sparked up. From then the path was trod with care between two screaming forces.

This love letter to the history of a city is rich with archival imagery and anecdotes. Ken Burns slides share the screen with animated sketches, talking head experts and moments from the film record. If you live in Melbourne (as I do) you will marvel and perhaps be virtually slapped by what was and what was lost. And there are the characters like E.W. Cole (of the funny picture book fame whose mission was the spread of literacy, not just making a pound) the Whelan wrecking business whose workers put on shows of bravura high rise risk for lunchtime oglers. A sobering interview between Whelan Jr. and a young Barry Humphries gives way to the gradual momentum of the notion of preservation which seems to be the only reason why we still have landmarks like The Astor or The Windsor.

The pace is maintained and the tone kept light but there is a real depth being delivered here. By the final montage of the old and new with some bow-tying narration we feel we have peered into daily lives, witnessed visions in stone, gasped at their demolition and thought about the toll of time. And that's from a documentary about buildings. The cinema screenings for this were sold out and I wasn't going to risk going into a viral wonderland so saw it at home. But, boy would this be a treat at one of the remaining Melburnian picture palaces.