Australian
Screen

Clip description

Newspaper publisher Mary Ford has disappeared, in suspicious circumstances. Developer Peter Houseman (Chris Haywood) appeals to building union boss Mick Davies (Dennis Miller) to lift his union’s ban. In a meeting with Kate Dean (Judy Davis) and his lawyer Philip Lawson (John Gregg), Houseman suggests a compromise – changing Steve’s design so that the disputed terrace houses can stay. When Steve (Richard Moir) protests, Houseman is quick to assert his aggressive authority.

Curator’s notes

This scene follows the party at which Kate Dean has tipped a plate of seafood on Houseman in protest. Judy Davis’s performance in this scene gives a good clue to Kate’s character – fearless, feisty and quite cheeky. She’s from a different social class to Houseman, but they both demonstrate a sense of humour here. That’s part of the film’s strategy of avoiding characters that can be simply classified as good or bad. Heatwave is about complexity, and that’s obvious in the way this scene asks the viewer to take in details of the two competing building unions, one of which is backed by the bosses, and the fake resident’s petition organised by the crooked lawyer, Philip Lawson, who may be playing his own game of deception behind Houseman’s back. There’s an interesting subtext about corruption here: Houseman is not quite joking when he says ‘Are you the bloke I’m supposed to bribe?’ but he is angry about the fake petition, possibly because it embarrassed him. He does not appear to know that it has been faked. One of the script’s strategies is to keep us guessing about who knows what about whom, and to compare the sins by degree. No-one is entirely innocent or entirely guilty in this film, at least not at this stage.