Article - Sydney Morning Herald - April 22, 2006

All made up for a mates' war

By William McInnes
April 22, 2006

A role that pays tribute to the struggles of an earlier generation is worth a star's day in the mud, but they can stick that army haircut.

I jumped in a taxi that was taking me to the airport and Roger Hodgeman, the director of Stepfather of the Bride, an ABC telemovie in which I am involved in Sydney, trotted up to the taxi window and pointed at me with his finger. "Don't let them cut your hair, William," he said.
I gave him a thumbs-up and the taxi set off from Leichhardt to the airport. I was interrupting the production of Stepfather for a day's shooting on Alister Grierson's feature debut Kokoda.

My hair wasn't that long but then again it wasn't your nice and tight Peter Debnam number. It definitely wasn't your frontline Kokoda cut, but I'd been told. They weren't to cut my hair.

The film was being shot on Mount Tamborine in the Gold Coast hinterland, and when you climb up the high slopes you get a quite stark view of the epic abruptness of the Surfers Paradise skyline.

The last time I had been to Mount Tamborine was on a science excursion in high school, when a bad-tempered teacher had tried to explain what the layers of rings on an old tree trunk meant.

[I remember no one really listened to him as the bellbirds called and his googly eyes searched for anyone to answer his question about why "the history of this place is important". I can't remember anyone answering his question. I don't even think he offered his own answer. I can remember his awful blue striped jumper and his voice echoing in the rain forest: "Well? Well? What's important?"]

Mount Tamborine, now, seemed to be the home of some very pleasant houses. The higher we drove, the nicer they seemed to be, and they sprouted everywhere, like mushies after thunderstorms. It was raining as we drove, and the clouds scudded low over the green hills. We turned down a muddy road and suddenly below us we saw the set.

Sometimes the really great thing about arriving on a set is that it can take you to a different place and a different time. It's an impression, of course, because if you look enough you can see through the work.

But it's all about the moment, and the elements combining: the rain, the greyness of the mist, the greenness of the rainforest, the abundance of mud and the work of the set designers had created a version of Papua New Guinea circa 1942 that was breathtaking.

I got out of the car and gingerly stepped through the mud past returning soldiers made gaunt with make-up, and Papuan stretcher-bearers cradling injured diggers. I carefully managed not to spill any of my large long black, courtesy of a quick stop at a cafe along the way, and headed to a large green tent.

The second assistant director and I exchanged greetings and had a chat about a telemovie we had made in Darwin that was very funny but sadly never saw the light of day.

"Now," said the friendly second, "you have to go off to make-up. They want to see you about ... your hair."

Me, my coffee, my paper and my not-to-be-cut hair traipsed into the caravan.

When you step into a make-up van on set you are supposed to say "Stepping". This is to inform the make-up people inside to stop momentarily so they don't muck up the face they are creating when the caravan lurches with the weight of the incoming actor.

I have the second announce "Stepping" for me, so I can enter the make-up van with a general "Hello there!" to its inhabitants.

I see Jack Finsterer being readied for battle. He plays the leading role in an ensemble piece and by all accounts has done it well. He looks handsome in a blue-eyed, short-haired way and I tease him a little. We are friends and he is a patient and kind man. In other words, he puts up with me.

"Jack," I say, "you look very good. Play your cards right, because you know if you look good on screen when you shoot a rifle and grimace in a manly way with your white teeth, then Hollywood is yours!"

He laughs. "Have you read this script, William?"

"Don't need to, old mate ... I know who won the war!"

It has been a pretty rugged shoot and the film is quite ambitious in its scale but the cast and crew have worked together to make the most of a modest budget. These are things that are good to hear about Australian films. The commitment and energy of cast and crew. The enthusiasm of the director and producers.

To make films matter to an Australian audience and to Australia - these are the ingredients that are essential to success. Or hopeful success.

I had met Alister Griersen in a Port Melbourne office and he certainly seemed to be enthusiastic and keen to crack the whip. He asked why I was interested in doing a small role like the colonel in the film. I told him that not many films were made about modern Australian history and certainly not about Kokoda.

And the colonel is based in part on Ralph Honner, a man I remember my father speaking about with admiration and pride. "A real cracker that bloke. Would have done well in any man's army. A good man, all right."

My father had a lot of time for the men who fought on the Kokoda Trail. They were a part, he said, of an event that helped make modern Australia.

The Kokoda Trail was fought by Australians not in the interests of rich and powerful friends, or motherlands and foreign monarchs. It was fought by Australians fresh from the streets of our country for the direct defence of our country.

And during the course of this battle something special happened, according to my old man. Something that resonated on a generational level.

White, closeted Australian men came to appreciate themselves as the beneficiaries of the courage and comradeship of the Papuans - black men who dressed and lived differently from those white Australians, but men with just as much courage and humanity as our own slouch-hatted diggers.

My father always regarded this as a step towards a greater tolerance and a greater understanding of the common bond of humanity between black and white. "At least it made people think."

Perhaps it will have some modern resonance in our relationship with the Papuan people - that our support shouldn't just be politically convenient, but should be put in a perspective of a shared struggle and comradeship.

I suppose in a minor way, doing this part is like tipping my hat to my father's generation. It's only a day's work and I decide to donate my fee to Legacy. So at least someone will get something out of it.

So I sit in the make-up van. And sit and sit and sit. My hair that cannot be cut seems to be a bit of a problem.

A hairpiece was a possible solution. It is supposed to thin the hair. But I looked like a rather sad customer of a Greg Matthews-type salon. Yeah, yeah. No, no.

Finally, after hours, my hair is oiled and scraped up and tied in a tight little bun. Then it is sprayed to a finish hard enough to crack open a macadamia nut. I pull on an infantry uniform and wander around with a shower cap to keep the rain off my nut-cracker bun. I sit and have lunch amid the cast and crew.

And then I am introduced to an old man. He lives below the mountain on the flats of Surfers. He is with his wife. He would have been tall when he was younger. Like some of the made-up soldiers. He is a veteran of the trail.

I sit and chat with him. As I do, I feel embarrassed about play-acting a war: making entertainment from this man's - and his generation's - own misery and struggle for life and death.

There is a lot of guff spoken about mateship and its sacredness to the idea of being Australian. Mateship is used to sell almost anything today. This man I spoke to with my hair in a shower cap actually lived it.

Time passes. The Australia for which the old man fought has changed - changed into a big, rich, multi-layered society. It's changed into the crawling traffic of Sydney, Surfers Paradise, a mecca for overseas visitors, a relatively tolerant, multicultural place to live.


I'm told by an assistant director it's time to travel down to the set. I replace my shower cap with a metal helmet. I'm ready to address the troops. I slip and slide in the mud.

Why make the film? Why? Well, ultimately, that is a question for the filmmakers themselves. For me, it's because time is passing and films like this should be made. Hopefully it won't just be a shoot-'em up, good-bloke adventure. I can't see Alister Grierson doing that. The audience will make what they will, and critics will have their verdicts.

It won't be the final, or definitive, portrait of the Kokoda Trail. But it will be a story about a period of our history. As that goggle-eyed teacher of mine shouted to the rainforest: "History is important."

And at least I know one thing - I didn't let them cut my hair.