072 REVIEW
Directed by
MIRRAH FOULKES
Starring
MIA WASIKOWSKA
DAMON HERRIMAN
BENEDICT HARDIE
Released
22 NOVEMBER
ANTICIPATION.
Mia Wasikowska is a magnetic
screen presence who tends to make
interesting choices.
ENJOYMENT.
A feminist subversion of the
puppet-show that comes into
its own as a delicious, dark
and atmospheric fairy tale.
IN RETROSPECT.
Leaves a pleasurable shudder
running through your body.
ustralian actor Mirrah Foulkes has
performed for a clutch of her country’s most
interesting exports, having appeared in
Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty and husband David
Michôd’s Animal Kingdom, as well as Kiwi director
Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake. She steps behind the
camera for her first feature as writer/director in
order to subvert a British cultural institution: the
Punch and Judy puppet show.
With its roots in Italy, Punch and Judy’s first
iteration in the UK was documented in 1664 by the
diarist Samuel Pepys and has endured to this day as a
form of family entertainment, which is curious when
you consider the basic premise: a deranged puppet
beating other characters with a stick followed by the
self-satisfied punchline, “That’s the way to do it!” In
recent years councils have stepped in to prevent this
show being performed at schools, concerned that
Punch is not a good role model for impressionable
young minds.
Foulkes does balanced work here, both retaining
the ingredients of her source material and melting
them down into a twisted live-action fairy tale
that is distinctively her own, with the magnificent
Mia Wasikowska acting with poised fury as Judy,
a female avenger of male violence. Welcome to the
fictional 17th century town of Seaside, where mud
mingles with the blood of women hung as witches,
all sent to the gallows by the baying mob who rule
the place. It is here that Punch (Damon Herriman)
and Judy perform their marionette show, he
celebrated as the star craftsman even though she is
truly pulling the strings.Their domestic life is coloured by an ominous
sense of impending violence. It’s for good reason
that Herriman has played murder-inciting cult
leader Charles Manson twice this year (in Once
Upon a Time... in Hollywood and Mindhunter).
His tiny eyes in a devilish face are coupled with a
seething twitchiness, as Punch broods on thwarted
ambitions and fails to stay sober or look after the
couple’s baby. Judy does not heed the ticking-time-
bomb energy of her husband, chastising him for his
lapses in responsibility. One day, he does something
accidentally awful, and compounds it with something
criminally terrible.
From here, the genre bends from claustrophobic
domestic drama to full-on fantasy revenge fable.
Foulkes bides her time before dealing out retributive
justice, drawing out the details of her deliciously dark
world. There is absurd humour to be found in François
Tétaz’s vaudevillian score, which underlines the very
worst moments with brassy cheek. Adele Flere’s art
direction establishes Seaside as a theatrically nasty
town, contrasting it with an almost supernatural,
earthy force emanating from the surrounding forest.
There are story arc comparisons to be made with
French director Coralie Fargeat’s blood-soaked rape-
revenge film Revenge, as both are geared towards
providing a cathartic finale of a woman turning the
tables on her male oppressor. While on one level
Judy & Punch is that simple, its sophistication is
found in Foulkes commitment to creating a layered
and symbol-rich tone poem, synthesising all
the elements of cinema to create a ghoulish ode to
female ingenuity. SOPHIE MONKS KAUFMANJudy & Punch
A