Almond looks that chill divine

Hello there. I've spent 4 days this week laying down sick in bed so I'm glad I've got these photos that were taken earlier in the year. They're sunny and I can spot a glimpse of my sunflowers in the background, which makes me enormously happy.

Thank goodness I was well enough to leave the house on Wednesday. For my birthday, my sister bought me tickets to a preview screening of 'MYSTIFY Michael Hutchence' which also had a Q&A with director Richard Lowenstein, a friend of Michael's and director of 1986 Australian cult classic Dogs in Space (!!) It was such a thoughtful present.

Source: Richard and Michael 

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Richard used interviews from the past and present to illustrate Michael's life. He made an intentional decision to avoid having a "talking heads" documentary, where the video footage is of people talking about Michael. Instead he opted to include various people speaking over footage of Michael's life, some which has never been seen before. Some people who were involved in the film include his brother Rhett, sister Christina, his father, Andrew Farriss' father, various girlfriends over the years including Michelle Bennett, Kylie Minogue, Helena Christensen, Paula Yates, his manager Martha Troup, friend Bono and record producer Nick Launay. Richard even used voice overs of Michael adding details about his own life.

Source: Michelle and Michael

In the Q&A, Richard was asked if the film is in actuality a love letter to his friend Michael. In his response, he had a chuckle about it being a 'like' letter before conceding that it was indeed a love letter, as much as you can have one for an old mate. Richard expressed some guilt about not being more aware of Michael's mental issues, so the film was intended to be part apology, part avenue to show what he was really like as a real person.

Source: With Kylie

That's something that I really surprised me. After all the books I've read about INXS and Michael Hutchence and all the documentaries I've seen, I was quite confronted with the realisation that he was a real person. Sometimes that's easy to forget when musicians achieve such levels of fame and you've never met them before.

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One of the audience members asked Richard about Michael and Paula's daughter Tiger Lily and her involvement in the film. Richard joked 'Is that you, Daily Mail?' as earlier in the week the Daily Mail had published an article twisting Richard's words, falsely implying that Tiger lived in a squat. What Richard did clarify was that he wanted to contact Tiger to let her know that he was trying to create this film in a respectful manner. After eating out together, Richard took the film back to her home that she shares with friends to watch it together. He jokingly described her place looking like a scene from Dogs in Space, with cats climbing over laptops and everything. If you've seen Dogs in Space, you'll get the joke, if not, it just means it was a bit messy. Truth be told, my room can sometimes look like a scene straight out of Dogs in Space too!

Dogs in Space

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Richard commented that Tiger was hesitant about another documentary about her father as she felt hurt by Channel 7s 2017 'The Last Rockstar' and the use of her private baby photos which she'd never even seen before. Several audience members congratulated  Richard for creating a respectful documentary about Michael and praised him for being able to make those who participated in the film feel comfortable sharing their stories.

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There was no way to give this film a happy ending given the context of how Michael died, but I did come away from the film thinking that it would have been great if it was longer and Michael's loved ones had more time to share their stories. Richard did humorously describe a London producer who flaunted his Grammy awards to highlight that he knew best and it would be better if the film was edited to be shorter. I have to disagree, I would've loved it to be longer, especially as Richard mentioned there was a 20 minute section about Dogs in Space that was cut out. I can't believe there's no reference to that cult classic throughout the film. That Grammy winning producer doesn't have a clue! 

Richard did hint that there would be a DVD release of the film with extra footage of INXS' visit to Prague and how Richard convinced them to travel to this communist country to film some music videos. I liked his stories about how between filming Never Tear Us Apart and New Sensation, they spontaneously filmed Michael's favourite music video Guns in the Sky in a hotel hallway, which only took 20 minutes.

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Overall, I really liked the film and being able to attend the Q&A with Richard Lowenstein. My mum, who was never really a fan of INXS, was surprised that she liked the film and she was particularly impressed by Michael's way of galloping everywhere, enthusiastic in his effort to get wherever he was going. I took a few day to process the film before writing about it here on my blog because it left me feeling a bit sad. I think I'll have to give it another watch to properly intake it all.

Right, I'm off to spend some much needed time in the sun. 

See you in a new blog post next week.

Title: Mystify by INXS.