It’s only while watching The Magician, a cult Australian movie from 2005, that it really hits home how prissy other mockumentaries are. Scott Ryan’s film goes in with both feet and by getting it wrong – wrong lens, bad lighting, framing all over the place – he gets that on-the-fly feeling just right.
It’s the pretend-real story of a hitman called Ray, played by Ryan himself, a wiry and wired gun for hire with a bullet head and a bullet ready for a victim in the film’s opening moments, all very indistinct, though we do manage to glean that the hit has been accomplished and Ray will be paid.
The rest of the film is a dangle. We know that Ray is a killer and will do it without compunction, but is he really going to whack a friend who’s got on the wrong side of a local Mr Big’s drug deal? Following him with a shakycam is Max (Massimiliano Andrighetto), a quirky and loquacious documentarian given to asking penetrating philosophical questions at the wrong moment, and whose admiration for Ray may shade over into something else.
The Belgian classic Man Bites Dog is clearly an inspiration (the mocking of the mock-doc), along with Aussie cult classic Chopper (humour in violence), but Ryan has also clearly done a lot of Tarantino bingeing. The sequence in which Ray and Max discuss whether Clint Eastwood was or was not in The Dirty Dozen feels lifted straight from Tarantino’s cutting-room floor.
The whole thing works because Ryan follows his initial conceit and does it all for real. The digressions – The Dirty Dozen apart – generally feel like the sort of conversations a film-maker might have with a hitman. What does Ray think of people who take drugs (they’re “fucking idiots”). At one point Max asks Ray about his background and Ray tries to answer without letting on that he doesn’t want to. At another it’s small talk about buying surgical gloves in bulk to get the best price. Through the various chats we start to understand something of Ray’s view on life. He’s a killer, sure, but he’s not a psycho. He has standards. That is kind of funny too.
Ryan has the documentary form down. The here and now footage intermingled with the cutaway scene-setting interview, the on-the-road footage, the headline scene, the intimate two-way, the interaction with the person holding the camera.
What is remarkable about it all is that no one in this movie is a professional. The Magician was made for $3,000 and started life as a 30-minute edit, until actor/director Nash Edgerton, brother of Joel, caught it a a film festival and got behind it.
The 85-minute movie edit we now have followed. Ryan and his film got noticed but then interest petered out and he ended up working as a taxi driver until Mr Inbetween, the TV show based on The Magician, finally started shooting in 2017. Mr Inbetween has done well, making Ryan the subject of countless features about the one hit wonder who came back from obscurity.
In 2005 the mock-doc was already yesterday’s news. There were still hits like Borat, LolliLove and Brothers of the Head but the heady days of This Is Spinal Tap, Bob Roberts and The Blair Witch Project were all in the previous millennium.
So it’s understandable why The Magician slipped down the back of the cultural sofa.
Finding it won’t change your life but it might give it a few knuckly mouthfuls to chew on. If you’re a Mr Inbetween fan in particular, I’d heartily recommend it.
The Magician – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2024
