The
Castle, immensely popular when it was
released during 1997 in Australia, is designed as a comedy
about a situation more serious than the one depicted, and
our laughter at the satire quickly diminishes as the plot
thickens. Good-natured working-class tow truck operator Darryl
Kerrigan (played by Michael Caton) has built a house, with
many additions (including a fake chimney), on a toxic landfill
at 3 High View Crescent, adjacent to Melbourne International
Airport. He and his wife Sal (played by Anne Tenney) have
a family of four, worked hard, and lived an upright life in
a small neighborhood under the shadow of frequent take-offs
and landings, which along with the presence of towering electric
lines nearby give Darryl an opportunity to celebrate the triumph
of twentieth century technology. One day a government assessor
arrives to determine the value of Darryl’s home. It seems
that the airport, after going through various governmental
channels to expand, has hired contractors to bulldoze his
home, which Darryl calls his "castle." Darryl refuses to move.
The airport authority tries monetary incentives and physical
threats, but to no avail. Darryl wants to keep his home and
realizes—this is clearly the paradigm of the film—that his
plight is similar to that of Australia’s aborigines, who are
currently fighting to regain not only their land but their
culture. Efforts to save the house from the wrecking crew
inevitably lead to court, but Darryl cannot afford a competent
lawyer, and he is unable to provide a single reason why he
should not capitulate to the airport authority other than
the platitude that his home is his "castle." Accordingly,
Darryl loses, though by chance during the court’s recess he
meets in the hallway (though a meeting in adjacent urinals
might be more appropriate) Lawrence Hammill (played by Charles
"Bud" Tingwell), a distinguished Australian lawyer, who soon
volunteers to handle a pro bono appeal of Darryl’s case to
the High Court of Australia. This time the case is won, with
Hammill citing in his summation such Darryl’s rhetoric about
a house as a home with memories that cannot be fairly taken
or adequately compensated. Of course, the government’s right
to eminent domain would never have been challenged successfully
in any American or Australian court, and the incompetent lawyer
who first defends Darryl would have been disbarred, but that
is the most enjoyable part of the film. Produced on a shoestring
(the hero is named Kerrigan because an actual company named
Kerrigan supplied tow trucks as props), directed by Rob Sitch
with a two-take maximum in eleven days (before the money ran
out to feed the cast and crew), and released in the United
States in May 1999 after a success at Sundance, The
Castle manifestly tells us that government actions
tend to favor the wealthy, disregard the poor, and courts
dispense "justice" according to the same formula; but the
film also says that there are well-meaning learned persons
who are willing to help the unfortunate, in Australia at least.
The portrayal of the little guy versus the system, a formula
associated with Frank Capra, is the superficial theme of The
Castle. The deeper meaning is that Australians should
correct the dishonor done to its aboriginal peoples, but the
message will unfortunately be lost on Americans who are too
busy laughing at the satire to realize that similar injustices
await redress in the United States. MH
I
want to comment on this film
