Stephan Elliott’s new film Swinging Safari is an insane, Vallium-infused romp through the chaos of 1970s Australia. It’s a maelstrom of beached whales and blue bottle stings, set against the backdrop of a neighbourhood in flux, and in turmoil.

The film focuses primarily on the plight of three families; the Marches, Halls, and Joneses. Whatever harmony they all might have shared is promptly shattered after the March and Jones matriarchs’ ill fated plan to host a good-old-fashioned key party while the kids are playing upstairs. And an unexpected conscientious objection from two attendees brings the party to an immediate close, thrusting the couples’ gripes with each other and their neighbours into the light of day.

For all the heightened comedy and whimsy of the film, there is something almost sinister beneath – a kind of eerie undercurrent that Elliott believes is integral to the story he wished to tell.

“The darkness is what interest me” says Elliott. “The funny stuff is just fine.” And while the film has been widely lauded, that selfsame darkness has not been lost on audiences in test screenings. “People say that it’s a cruel and it’s a poisonous film, and some people have said that my wit can be quite nasty. But it all really happened.”

The authenticity of the picture is something that Elliott values. As bizarre as the wash of bad decisions made by the film’s parents gets – not to mention the questionable sexual behaviours that lead to their initial fracas – Eliott is here to ardently assure one that there’s truth to every scene.

“It was uncomfortable,” he admits. “I was uncomfortable. It was pretty harsh and funny, but I didn’t lie with this one: it’s the first time ever I’ve actually not made stuff up – and I’m sorry, it happened. Shit happens: we live through it.”

One aspect of the film that was frequently flagged as problematic in screenings was the plight of the Jones family’s pet turtle, tethered to a hills hoist by a hole drilled in its shell. Despite multiple calls to cut the scene, Elliott is a fierce defender of the turtle’s futile struggle. “I mean, that’s your metaphor,” he says, “that’s your metaphor for the whole film, just going round and round. That’s got a lot of baggage for me.”

The baggage from Elliott’s childhood might have made for a great script, but it meant the film was a long time coming. “It took me three weeks to write it and it took me 35 to 40 years to think about it; to process it.” After amassing decades of anecdotes and ideas, at 50 he finally put pen to paper and found the process more challenging than he anticipated.

Nonetheless, the challenge resulted in an ensemble of blisteringly flawed, authentic characters. Elliott believes at the core of his heroes’ poor decisions is a desire simply to be happy. “They’re not happy, but they really want to be and in this new consumer age they’re in now they think, ‘Well, I should be happy and everything we’re going to do now is about looking for this happiness.’”

The adult cast, comprised of Julian McMahon, Radha Mitchell, Guy Pearce, Kylie Minogue, Asher Keddie and Jeremy Sims portray the parents with a perfect blend of empathy and spite. The final script was also heavily influenced by the actors’ improvisation, and Elliott trusted his cast completely.

“When that cast came on board, specifically with the adults, I said, ‘These are my words, what do you think? Do with them what you want, and if you ever get into trouble, become your parents.’”

When asked what Swinging Safari has to say about modern Australia, Elliott is quick to point to the magic of his own childhood. “I rode a bike and went to school on my own and sometimes didn’t even make school and no one cared. I came home at 11 o’clock at night cut and bleeding and no one gave a shit.”

Shit happens: we live through it.

With all of the questionable decisions the parents make in the film, Swinging Safari becomes in its own peculiar way a statement on how to raise children, and how to foster resilience. “The only way you know that you’re going to fall off a monkey bar is to fall off a monkey bar. It’s how it works. You’ve got to lose your skin on your knees. You’ve got to lose a tooth. You know that if you jump off there you’re going to get hurt and then you never jump off it again. We now have a generation that are no longer even allowed to jump off there.”

Finally, when asked why Australian audiences respond so well to the sort of kitsch that runs rampant through Swinging Safari, Elliott believes it has to do with our collective – and rather bleak – sense of humour.

“Australians are funny bastards, you know, larrikins. It’s kind of dying now, but there isn’t an Australian around the world who isn’t afraid of making a complete dick of themselves. There’s an honesty there, and a larrikinism that is just so us and I’m scared now as we’re getting more and more into American culture that it’s just dying.”

In that way, Swinging Safari is an attempt to celebrate the humour and character that Elliott perceives as uniquely Australian – a culture that is changing, slowly but surely. “Our isolation made really interesting animals, flora and fauna – and I think the people came out just as interesting as the kangaroos. Now that isolation is going.”

Swinging Safari is in Australian cinemas now. For more Aussie film content, read our thoughts on the devastatingly atrocious The BBQ.

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