This film has finally crawled its way to my area. Living in the San Francisco bay area, I usually get most art house pieces fairly quickly. For some reason the dish was reviewed by many in April and May, and I only got to see it for the first time in the middle of July. Perhaps it was this anticipation that made the film seem so bland to me. "The Dish" came in second at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival's people's choice award, behind only "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." I don't see how, simply because the movie never managed to captivate me.

The story is how this small town in Australia named Parkes is the home of one of the world's largest radio telescopes. It is the largest in the southern hemisphere, so NASA wants to enlist its aid in helping to receive the audio and video signals from man's first landing on the moon. This movie is supposedly based on historical fact, but I would have to question some of the major happenings. One reason I wasn't too enthralled may be because we pretty much know what happens with the moon walk. And I never really felt any danger towards the end with the possible collapse of the dish in heavy winds. If it had happened, or they lost the signal in another way, I think I would have heard that part of the story before.

The film seems to go back and forth in convincing me that everything happening is a really big deal, and that it isn't. There is a lot of talk about how important the moon landing will be if it is successful. I agree with them in their various speeches. The moon landing is important because for everything we know about it, we don't know if a landing can be safely done. We hear lines like "This is science's chance to be daring" and "This is the fastest man has ever traveled before". I agree that this is (was) a big day for mankind.

However, they also describe NASA as just a larger version of what the radio telescope operators are doing. They also point out that there are a lot of important people all doing the same types of things that they are doing. There is even another radio telescope, the primary one, in California. The dish in the film is just a backup for when Voyager is on the other side of the Earth. There are many reminders that they are just a small part of a very big project.

Like most Australian comedies, actually like most non-American comedies, the movie bases its comedy by first filling itself with colorful people. None of these characters seem particularly competent at their work, but close enough to get the job done. Sam Neil is the 'leader' of the dish's team of scientists and yet seems the least excited by all of it. One of my favorite characters was Rudi, the over zealous security guard who has been ordered by NASA to carry a firearm. He tells his sister Janine that he is afraid that if their mom finds out, she'll come and take it away from him. He isn't much respected or feared by anyone in town, and the scientists turn off their radio so they don't have to hear his constant security updates of where he is.

The mayor's daughter was the catalyst for most of the bigger laughs for me. She seems to be a harsh bitter young teenage girl who says at one point "If you ask me, this whole moon project is just the world's largest chauvinistic demonstration ever attempted.". Her mother merely replies, "I guess that is why no one ever asks you." We also saw a neighbor boy try to ask her out several times, usually with predictable and unfunny results. Once, however, when he asks her father for permission, the father states "You are a very brave man". This got a good laugh out of me. Of course she softens up a little with him at the end. Movies like this can never end with on unhappy notes.

The problem with most of these quirky characters is that they were pretty much one dimensional, and fairly interchangeable. I could even imagine some of the townspeople switching roles with the dish workers without changing a beat. One of the workers at the dish wants to ask a pretty girl out, but cannot. No surprises with how that would turn out. Some of the guys like to play cricket on the inside of the dish. I guess this was supposed to be funny.

I did get a good laugh at the end of another predictable scene. The visiting American ambassador is a total space nut, and they fake a voice communication with Neil Armstrong to hide the fact they lost the signal. This in itself was a little predictable, and not very funny, but a line at the end where the man who was pretending to be Neil Armstrong says "is it a felony to impersonate someone in orbit?" was hysterical.

Another aspect of the lack of dimension with some of these characters was when there was a conflict between them. At one point one of the local workers snaps at the American NASA representative accusing him of looking down upon him as a country bumpkin who doesn't know what he is doing. This debate leads to one of the better discussions in the film where they explain their respect to one another, yet nothing before this has given us any reason to feel either of them thought this way.

As for the story itself, I'm still a little in the air about how true it is. I'm sure it could be true regarding the blackout and the wind danger. I just still can't help but feel that they were contrived for the sake of the movie. I imagine that the real people who the actors are portraying may not like the comical way many of the characters are shown either. 1969 wasn't that long ago.




Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up Ages 8