sharky_55 Head On is the title and the way in which young Greek-Australian Ari approaches, no, attacks life and all its riches. At least that is how I remembered it from the original source, Christos Tsiolkas' barbed novel Loaded, about a similar Ari character and his quarter (assuming he lasts that long) life crisis. Alex Dimitriades doesn't quite match my own literary conception - he's tall, dark, with Mediterranean good looks, and although he spits accusations of how white Anglo girls see his kind ("All they see is a hairy back"), he could walk into anywhere and leave with a girl on each arm and a modelling contract. Tsiolkas' Ari wouldn't deliver this observation (a truth in his eyes) with straight contempt, he'd leer and egg the gaze on, relish in his role as a taboo object of desire. The Ari I know simultaneously fetishises and loathes his Greek heritage, his 'wogness', the way it defines his sexual encounters by both limiting his partners and yet opening up a whole new world of built men in dark alleyways looking to satisfy a forbidden urge. Ari's lifestyle sees him indulge in a frenetic haze of sex, partying and drugs to placate his anger at society and delay his advancement into adulthood. In her sophomore effort, Kokkinos' filmic style captures this hedonistic existence with all the trashiness of the late 90s grunge aesthetic, the hand-held camera following Ari into dirty back alleys, ducking and weaving through crowded clubs, hurtling after its subjects like a music video on speed. The shots use whatever available light, forgoing previously glamourised screen versions of urban Australia and ripping back the covers to reveal the underbelly of the Melbourne nightlife. Sometimes Kokkinos will employ a slow-motion effect similar to that of the step printing in that of Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express, sending streaks of neon light across the shot in a drugged haze. The camera is as infatuated as the characters are, fawning over their aggressive sexual encounters in extreme close-up, never joining the bodies in unison but focusing solely on individual gasps of pleasure. And yet it lacks true edge. It goes for safe, popified images that lack polish merely because of the budget and director's experience, instead of what it shoots. It replaces Ari's handpicked playlists with a vague mix of disco and traditional Greek anthems, which remove a pivotal part of his character. And the editing, which attempts to condense Ari's life into a neatly packaged 24 hours, lacks the urgency of something like Run Lola Run, which races along with a dramatic intensity. The time frame is also the antithesis of Ari's self-described dogma, an aimless, self-destructive pathway to nowhere, in which 24 hours turns into a week, a week into a month, a month into another year of sex, drugs and unemployment. Kokkinos has simplified Tsiolkas' thesis on multiculturalism, and outlined a path which zigzags through vague, flashy sections of Melbourne at night rather than expose the strict dividing lines that segment the city socio-culturally: "The North, if you're a wog, will entrap you. The Northern suburbs are full of the smells of goats cheese and olive oil, hashish and bitter coffee. The Northern suburbs are unrelentingly flat with ugly little brick boxes where the labouring and unemployed classes roam circular streets; the roads to nowhere." There's no such vitriol in Dimitriades' delivery, although it's difficult on screen rather than through inner monologue. Kokkinos gives him nothing; she's turned the narrative into a sort of black white battle between traditionalist values and transgressive norms, with the parents as the conservative villains who see Ari's build and declare him a real man, a straight man. The script treads around those derogatory terms lightly as if afraid of being too upsetting, when Ari should really be embracing them, re-appropriating them, wearing his othered status with juvenile pride. Finally, as if to loudly declare he and Johnny's cross-dressing alter ego Toula as smears on the shiny glass of a Australia's heteronormative society, they are stripped and violated by two dirty cops. But Ari doesn't need an abusive, antagonistic force to beat him down. His own existence is punishment enough - a sailor and whore to the very end.

Movie Critic Where do you start with this amateur boring disjointed thing? It looked like it was filmed with an early Nokia phone. Half the camera shots are close ups of Ari (the protagonist). The screen play was the worst part though. It is one of those movies that are so bad they could be humorous. And I am gay! Back to the screen play trite comes to mind-- Australia must be 50 years behind the US (I have heard this by the way) in terms of melting pot stuff. Or some pseudo-intellectual lefty queen thought this the perfect movie script (much more likely). No one in US thinks Italian or Greek or even Latino any more it has all become pretty much main stream. Thank God. That then axes the whole PC gist of the movie...ethnic isolation/discrimination/fitting in--in an "angl#" world. Ari is as another reviewer stated gorgeous...why does he have furtive alley sex with an over weight oriental a scrungy old biker type etc...he could have anyone...this just doesn't fit. This unintelligent screen play attempts to be lefty (shots of protests against Greek colonels) and deep. "I am on the edge of a sewer and smell the shi@" "I am a sailor and a whor$"... I actually laughed at this last line. Written by an unintelligent queen trying to be deep. The writer is also trying to show the edgy dystopia of the gay world...drug driven desperate shadowy degrading back alley sex full of drag queens etc... The real gay world even I imagine in Melbourne is much more mundane and thankfully boringly wholesome. How this thing won any awards etc...?? Again Australia must be 50 years behind the US. Sorry if I insult anybody.DO NOT RECOMMEND

jameselwynlytle "Head On" is a film we should all see, if only to experience Alex Demitriades doing a start turn as magical as Fassbinder's work was in "Shame." Ari, the young man played by Demitriades, is one of those beautiful young things with whom one cannot help but fall in love, lust after, and forgive; and Demitriades understands the character so very well one cannot help but fully believe his every nuanced move. He is simply movie magic in "Head On." The other actors are equally skilled (further evidence that good acting must be in the water in Oz), with Eugenia Fragos as Ari's mother turning in a stand-out performance as well. See "Head On," and leave yourself some time to think on Ari and his youthful transgressions afterwards. Then be glad that you've passed that age.

mezaco In Head On, Alex Dimitriades plays a troubled young gay Greek-Australian man who has LOTS of anonymous sex and takes LOTS of drugs a LOT of the time. Be prepared for lots of explicit gay sex scenes, not to mention violence and drugs. But I really did not enjoy this film on the whole. The character interaction is very over the top. Characters fly into fits of rage without explanation, people break into fights without warning, and the dialogue is completely stilted and unnatural. I can see this film's basic message, of a young man trying to come to grips with his heritage and also find love and happiness in a world of parties, drugs and sex. It's a dreary procedure, however, that portays Greeks as hysterical violent thugs who dance, literally dance, all day in any situation, even while in the middle of a fight! There are many incomprehensible decisions, actions and the film goes absolutely nowhere. Yes, you feel for this young man who just can't find his way. But it's like this filmmaker is trying too hard to make an "oooh-shocking!", "hard-edged" indie film. It just doesn't work.