In conversation about The Combination

Students and teachers gathered at UTS last week to hear Australian actor and director David Field host a forum about his recent film The Combination.

Already a noted actor, The Combination marked Mr Field’s directing debut, and created a buzz around Australia on its release earlier this year, on account of its powerful story, centred on ethnic identity and racism within the Australian community. Temporarily pulled from some cinemas after a couple of instances of violence, it depicts the story of a contemporary Lebanese family confronting an array of challenges in the western suburbs.

The forum explored Mr Field’s aims in directing the film, which took seven years to produce. He was accompanied at the talk by Dr Jane Chi Hyun Park, a specialist in representations in popular media. She described the film as “rare, special and very moving”, due to its reliance on a plot based around cultural barriers represented through meaningful relationships, rather than the more commonly talked-about theme of underworld violence.

Dr Park noted the dearth of coloured people involved in making films in Western cinema. She added, however, that films such as Mr Field’s allowed stories about minority groups a new medium through which to be heard.

According to Mr Field, the film’s story encompassed more than simply the struggles of the Lebanese community portrayed by the film characters. A key underlying principle of the film is celebrating the success of Indigenous culture in Australia. Roles of success and heroics are reflected in the story through individuals of Indigenous backgrounds – roles which Mr Field said existed in reality, yet are largely ignored in the Western film industry.

by Sharin Ahmed