'Lantana' tries to be art film, only half succeeds
By Ron Riekki | May 17, 2002"Lantana"is a complicated film - complicated to view and complicated to review. It opens with a tone that's part Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," part O'Neill's "The Emperor Jones." From its initial "Blue Velvet" reminiscent slow pan over a thorny lantana bush to the careful revealing of a corpse, we understand we're in for a somber Australian version of an art film, which is worlds away from the Crocodile Dundee misrepresentation Americans have of Outback cinema. Director Ray Lawrence reminds one of a subtler Robert Altman.
