Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line: Movie Review

Director: Peter Clarke

A Midnight Oil documentary that ends up more about Midnight Oil themselves rather than the individual band members, director Peter Clarke,'s seven year opus follows the Aussie band from their formation in 1970s Australia to their final live performances some 40 years later.

But while it never seeks to criticise the band, it does stop from canonising them and proffers many electric performances in pubs or on tours at festivals to set a great precedent as to why and how they became so beloved. From representing the voices of the socially repressed at the time to speaking out via song at the Sydney Olympics, the Oils have always had a presence.

With what seems like acres of archive footage to call upon, it's inevitable that the focus zooms into electric front man Peter Garrett rather than the rest of the band. Bass players come and go, a drummer suffers from panic attacks, yet Garrett's live wire approach still helps inform a lot of the Oil's appeal both on record and on screen - particularly in the latter half of Clarke's extended fan-service.

While a chunk is devoted to his failed foray into politics, it's perhaps disheartening to see other band members ignored during this sabbatical other than to toss a cursory mention of their side surf band project. Strains on families are mentioned as a byproduct of relentless touring but none of them appear on screen. There's a feeling that you get to know the band's output, rather than the band itself.

Admittedly these are minor quibbles , footnotes in a doco that benefits from insight from the band themselves interlaid over footage in studios, photos or period detail from Australia's past. The extent of the archive is vast and the assemblage of it is taut, its flow never constricted over 105 minutes of what could easily have been a greatest hits package.

The political undercurrent is there and the bands detour into the Outback's remotest parts in 1986 which saw them galvanized by aboriginal mistreatment is given the reverence and respect it deserves - before the group's core DNA is permanently and irrevocably changed.

Perhaps another film would assuage more to form a narrative bent but Clarke wisely uses the power of the band's sound and discography to pull together a doco that's rich, compelling and toetappingly good - just as long as you're already a fan and don't want to know much about the other main players in the troupe.

This film is playing as part of the 2024 Whanau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival. For more details, visit nziff.co.nz