Australian film-maker Jaydon Martin makes an outstanding feature debut with this absorbing, moving and visually beautiful docufiction – a kind of guided reportage about two men’s lives in the regional town of Bundaberg in Queensland, the Australian Texas. It’s shot in a luminous monochrome, switching inscrutably to colour occasionally for the digital moments of home video.
“Flathead” refers to the fish used in fish and chip shops in the locality. One such, the Busy Bee, is now being looked after, prior to sale to new buyers, by a young man called Andrew Wong, whose late father was a Chinese immigrant who owned the shop, built the business through 50 years of toil and paid for the education of Andrew and his sisters. Andrew, however, seems committed only to his workout programme and bodybuilding goals.
