MIFF Play #6: Petrol

Eva, a film student, is recording some seaside sound at a rocky beach and comes across a group of young folk performing a vampiric looking ritual. Unseen, she retreats, intrigued by the central figure, a woman, who utters something that might be profound. Eva encounters the mystery woman again, back in town and has opportunity to introduce herself (via returning a dropped necklace) to Mia and the two start a friendship. Eva's life is happy enough but she craves the intrigue of Mia's demi-monde and infiltrates it, encountering a number of carboard bohemians moving around in a quantum vortex of the finest hooey.

The problem this film faces has less to do with its attempt at introducing a lot of ideas about coincidence and attraction than it has to do with the fact that the centre of narrative gravity is played by such a black hole of charisma. Mia, intended to be darkly intriguing, occasionally looks interesting but mostly murmurs deepities as though she's trying to remember what was on a lost shopping list. Eva is played with conviction but it only exposes how little it must take to fascinate her.

The film is beautifully shot and gives Melbourne a gorgeous turn but when you're noticing that more than caring about the tale you're probably also checking the time on your phone. The title, I think, refers to how petroleum looks like multicoloured shimmers when seen in a puddle. If that's the way Eva sees Mia we don't get to share the vision. There is a twist that is deliberately telescoped but, as low as I regard this film, I will not spoil it. That's it. Not for me.