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Steven Worsley, United Kingdom, July 2005
The Edge of the World is a touching story of friendship and betrayal. The diverse ensemble cast lend themselves wonderfully to their roles making you believe in every action and plot revelation. For a first time feature director, Shaun Jefford creates a beautiful film that looks and feels like he's been making these films for years. The film combines a great collaboration of cast and crew that clearly worked well together to produce a film worthy of widespread distribution. The film matches itself to any modern cinematic tale and the future certainly looks bright for Jefford.
TC, Australia, 2005
Populated by some interesting characters be sure to savor the craziness of Marvin the porter. (See the film just for Marvin if for some reason the rest does not appeal.) A philosopher, a lover and an ether addict - to "tune out the static" - Marvin is the thread that ties the present to the past and who brings the past back to life for the unwitting protagonists. Set partly in the present, partly in the Australian 50's The Edge of the World is a piece of work. Well worth the effort.
Steven E. Kroll, California, 2005
Watching "The Edge of the World", a gritty Aussie noir tale weaving past and present into a seamless story of drugs, diamonds, and treachery; beautifully photographed against the splendid backdrop of Sydney, Australia, it is hard to believe the barest-bones budget of independent filmmaker Shaun Jefford’s intriguing movie, nor that it is actually Jefford’s first feature film.
The cinematography – especially the close-ups, and the aerial photography – is beautiful and compelling, as is the sensitive editing, so successful in effortlessly melding past with present, then with now. An intimately photographed old tin box that turns up in the hands of a beautiful but emotionally lost hooker becomes an evocative image for moving between two time-periods spanning 30 years of petty crime and punishment; and the once glorious now-decrepit Pacific Hotel is another, more mutable cinematographic link between those generations. I don’t know whether the Pacific Hotel truly exists on the wild coastline of southeastern Australia, but – like Colorado’s Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s "The Shining," and The Grand Hotel in Jeannot Szward’s "Somewhere In Time" (both made in 1980)-- Shaun Jefford’s Pacific Hotel becomes a character in "The Edge of the World" every bit as individual and essential to the telling of this story as its exceptional cast of live actors.
The film’s stars are classic in every sense, and, if I might say, classy as well. Lee Martin and John Andrews completely inhabit the principal roles of two punks, William and Bennie, now grown old and tired in a world that seems as hopeless and crumbling as their own. Martin and Andrews have lived-in faces– craggy lines etching character without a word being spoken. Robin Royce Queree is perfect as Marvin, the Pacific Hotel’s once elegant doorman and now dissolute desk clerk, the single character in the film still working at the Pacific, and linking the high life of the Hotel in 1959, and its decrepitude and imminent demise 30 years later. Queree’s portrayal of old Marvin as a sadly funny ether-addled pervert rivals Michael Caine’s take on the ether- snorting doctor in Lasse Hallstrom’s 1999 film, "The Cider House Rules."
As a beautiful but haunted (in more ways than one, perhaps) used and abused drug-addicted working girl in the present-day Pacific Hotel, Clare Mackey is mesmerizing as Sarah. I had to avert my eyes at one scene showing her shooting up, so real was it. (I’m the sensitive sort!). Ellouise Rothwell as Lucre, Sarah’s counterpart (perhaps) from the past, is evocative and magnetic, even when she appears soundlessly in the home movies played and replayed from that earlier time. Ian Swallow as Old Claude, Tom Lanni as Delgatto, and the others playing present-day and from-the-past characters are all excellent, feeling like a true ensemble group.
Quite incredibly, this provocative little movie "was made with a 100% volunteer crew and with begged, borrowed and even stolen equipment" says writer/producer/director Shaun Jefford in a Director’s Statement for Edge of the World. In an August 2004 interview with MediaMan.com, Jefford told of how, during this time, he was living in LA "and dead broke, and I mean, tragically broke, broke." (This is undoubtedly not hyperbole – think "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell).
Can anyone not in the business truly understand what it takes to get a movie made these days, and once made, brought before as large an audience as possible? An incredible number of man and woman –hours, creating, planning, organizing to the nth degree; valuable and often exotic equipment -- those helicopter-captured shots of Australia’s wild and wooly ocean and headlands were breathtaking! ; skilled and experienced people to build and electrify and light and photograph the sets and locations, caterers to feed them all, transportation of people and things; jumping through legal and regulatory hoops for permits and permissions; post production editing and promoting, and on and on and ON. Achhh, it hurts the head!
And, of course, it takes money. Usually lots and lots of it. And even with really lots and lots of money (tens and scores of millions), many are the films – studio-produced as well as far less costly independent ones – that simply never see more than one night’s audience, in the theatre rented out for the occasion of their "official" premiere. If that.
So to get any feature film to market, much less one made in the desperate straights this filmmaker endured, reflects a drive and persistence and single-mindedness; a passion for the art and craft; and the will to succeed that appears like a common denominator in all the great makers of movies, old and modern. Jefford credits much of the success of Edge of the World, in addition to his talented and unselfish volunteer crew, to his First Assistant Director (and collaborator, apparently) Antara Bhardwaj, an obviously talented and well-organized woman, and indeed both Jefford and Bhardwaj have gone on to bigger directorial things since Edge, which I sincerely do hope means at least a decent salary after all these years, if not yet international fame.
Bigger isn’t necessarily better in any event, and what these people have put together in terms of 90 minutes of thoroughly entertaining cinema with The Edge of the World belies completely the poverty-stricken budget they had to operate on. This is a professional and satisfying production in every way.
One can only speculate what Shaun Jefford will be producing once armed with the resources required to show us his complete cinematic vision, unhampered and uncompromised by the inconvenience of being "broke, tragically broke, broke." I think we’ll see that properly financed film soon, and I think it will be very good indeed".
The Edge of the World is a touching story of friendship and betrayal. The diverse ensemble cast lend themselves wonderfully to their roles making you believe in every action and plot revelation. For a first time feature director, Shaun Jefford creates a beautiful film that looks and feels like he's been making these films for years. The film combines a great collaboration of cast and crew that clearly worked well together to produce a film worthy of widespread distribution. The film matches itself to any modern cinematic tale and the future certainly looks bright for Jefford.
TC, Australia, 2005
Populated by some interesting characters be sure to savor the craziness of Marvin the porter. (See the film just for Marvin if for some reason the rest does not appeal.) A philosopher, a lover and an ether addict -
Steven E. Kroll, California, 2005
Watching "The Edge of the World", a gritty Aussie noir tale weaving past and present into a seamless story of drugs, diamonds, and treachery; beautifully photographed against the splendid backdrop of Sydney, Australia, it is hard to believe the barest-
The cinematography – especially the close-
The film’s stars are classic in every sense, and, if I might say, classy as well. Lee Martin and John Andrews completely inhabit the principal roles of two punks, William and Bennie, now grown old and tired in a world that seems as hopeless and crumbling as their own. Martin and Andrews have lived-
As a beautiful but haunted (in more ways than one, perhaps) used and abused drug-
Quite incredibly, this provocative little movie "was made with a 100% volunteer crew and with begged, borrowed and even stolen equipment" says writer/producer/director Shaun Jefford in a Director’s Statement for Edge of the World. In an August 2004 interview with MediaMan.com, Jefford told of how, during this time, he was living in LA "and dead broke, and I mean, tragically broke, broke." (This is undoubtedly not hyperbole – think "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell).
Can anyone not in the business truly understand what it takes to get a movie made these days, and once made, brought before as large an audience as possible? An incredible number of man and woman –hours, creating, planning, organizing to the nth degree; valuable and often exotic equipment -
And, of course, it takes money. Usually lots and lots of it. And even with really lots and lots of money (tens and scores of millions), many are the films – studio-
So to get any feature film to market, much less one made in the desperate straights this filmmaker endured, reflects a drive and persistence and single-
Bigger isn’t necessarily better in any event, and what these people have put together in terms of 90 minutes of thoroughly entertaining cinema with The Edge of the World belies completely the poverty-
One can only speculate what Shaun Jefford will be producing once armed with the resources required to show us his complete cinematic vision, unhampered and uncompromised by the inconvenience of being "broke, tragically broke, broke." I think we’ll see that properly financed film soon, and I think it will be very good indeed".
