For a film that so closely resembles a feature length home movie, Kriv Stenders' Blacktown (2005) has actually been doing rather well for itself. Shot on consumer-level digital video with a sizeable chunk of Stenders' own money, the picture has thus far screened to a number of enthusiastic festival audiences in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane who have been surprisingly willing to embrace the film's often exhilarating lo-fi asceticism. This is to be applauded. For while some will undoubtedly decry Blacktown for its messy, seemingly amateur aesthetic, I believe this is the film's most appealing characteristic—along with the energy of some of its performances—especially given the derivative nature of its ostensibly improvised plot.

For those of us with a growing love for the look and feel of consumer-level video—for those of us, in other words, who mix a kind of digital dandyism with the fervent belief that mundane is the new punk—a film like Blacktown is essentially a collection of one-chip materialist pleasures. There's something pleasurable, for example, about the deliriousness of Stenders' handheld camera, its limited exposure latitude, and the everydayness of its colour palette. The film's blacks are often 'noisy' blacks—not 'inky' blacks, not 'clean'—and its whites are constantly blown out, in a way that is somehow appealing.

As regards sound, too, Blacktownis a film of extremes. We can often hear the electronic whir of the camera during the film's quieter moments, implicitly suggesting director-actor intimacy. Whenever the characters shout at one another, the soundtrack peaks and becomes difficult to take.

These technical 'flaws'—these oddly congenial lo-fi aberrations—do not at all detract from the film. On the contrary, they're what make this particular medium special, manifesting the emotional energy of each scene in the camera itself and reminding us of the director's proximity to the action. These are the digital equivalents of celluloid-era materialist pleasures such as lens flare and the comforting whir of the 16mm camera that has gotten too close to the microphone. These are the same flaws we see in our own home movies and they subsequently render the film more human, bringing it closer, so to speak, to us. The fingerprints of consumer electronics are more the consumer's than they are the electronics'.

I have hinted at the film's emotional energy, which is provided in large part by Stenders' lead actors. Tony Ryan in particular is extremely watchable and visually fascinating and Niki Owen—while nowhere near as captivating as her co-star—is solid. Ryan's seemingly boundless energy—which he is, indeed, so marvellously alive with—is, along with Stenders' technical fingerprints, Blacktown's greatest strength and its most fiercely organic, human elements.

Given the energy that imbues Blacktown on a technical and performative level, it's a shame that, on the level of character and plot, Stenders borrows so heavily from John Cassavetes' Minnie and Moskowitz (1971). A better picture than Blacktown, and one that would be hard for anyone to improve on, Cassavetes' picture, like Stenders', is concerned with two likeable but isolated individuals who meet by chance and embark upon an emotionally fraught whirlwind courtship. If this was the extent of the parallel, it might at first seem somewhat coincidental, but one can't help but note than even the personality traits of Blacktown's characters seem to have been lifted wholesale from the earlier film. The emotionally fragile Nikki is to Gena Rowlands' Minnie what the unpredictable Tony is to Seymour Cassel's Moskowitz. Both Tony and Moskowitz have eccentric mothers and both Nikki and Minnie have concerned female workmates. Both films begin with their female leads getting mixed up with obnoxious married men who—while admittedly obnoxious for different reasons—are both played by the directors of their respective films. This is rather telling.

It's not that Stenders is comparing himself to Cassavetes that's the problem—whether he's doing so consciously or unconsciously, seriously or with tongue-in-cheek—but rather that this merely highlights, beyond reasonable doubt, the parallels between the films and, more damning for Blacktown, the fact that it does nothing particularly new or interesting with the material. One can't help but acknowledge that even Blacktown's thrilling aesthetic has a distinctly Cassavetean air about it.

Though Blacktown is certainly not without its flaws, it does have a distinctly human energy about it that is ultimately redeeming. However, the best thing about it may just be the fact that audiences have embraced it, suggesting that there's a potential audience for lower budget, less polished, 'homemade' Australian features.