Smash Palace

Smash Palace is a thoroughly remarkable and commercial drama about human beings. Superbly constructed and paced... Roger Donaldson’s second feature establishes him at world rank, without doubt.

Smash Palace, New Zealand, 1982

Director/producer: Roger Donaldson
Production co: Aardvark Films
Associate producer: Larry Parr
Screenplay: Roger Donaldson, Peter Hansard, Bruno Lawrence
Director of photography: Graeme Cowley
Camera: Paul Leach
Editor: Mike Horton
Art director: Reston Griffiths
Sound: Mike Westgate, Brian Shennan, Don Reynolds, Patrick Monaghan, Derek Morton
Music: Sharon O’Neil

With: Bruno Lawrence (Al Shaw), Anna Jemison (Jacqui Shaw), Greer Robson (Georgie Shaw), Keith Aberdein (Ray Foley), Des Kelly (Tiny)

35mm, 100 minutes, R16

Al Shaw is a racing car driver who met his French born wife Jacqui in Europe. The couple live near National Park in the central North Island, and with their seven-year-old daughter Georgie, run a car-wrecking yard. Jacqui feels she does not belong in Al’s world and eventually the marriage breaks down. Al is prevented from seeing Georgie by a court order, so he kidnaps her and terrorises the pursuing police.

“His [Bruno’s] incandescent Al Shaw, the petrolhead father fighting for access to his daughter in Roger Donaldson’s Smash Palace, remains the finest single performance in our cinema.” — ‘The fast life of our first real film star’, Peter Calder, NZ Herald, 19 July 2000

“Smash Palace is a thoroughly remarkable and commercial drama about human beings. Superbly constructed and paced, it is the story of a marital break up which erupts into an impulsive kidnapping of a child by its father and a totally-believable escalation to the brink of tragedy. Roger Donaldson’s second feature establishes him at world rank, without doubt. His handling of actors is excellent, and his visual control constantly enthralling – with due nod here to some fine cinematography by Graeme Cowley… The script’s expositional sequences are neatly handled, making the character development logically part of the narrative. With strong performances by both Bruno Lawrence and Anna Jemison to work with, the director has effectively created a reality to the tension that goes beneath the surface – or as it might be said: has re-created real life on film… Donaldson has extracted superlative performances from his cast… Lawrence exudes power, coming over as a tough guy with a great deal of ambivalence about how he ought to be and how he impulsively is.” — Variety, 2 September, 1981

“The performances, most notably Mr Lawrence’s, are so strong that they fill in the screenplay’s gaps. Mr Lawrence makes Al real and recognizable every step of the way, so that even when his anger erupts into violence, he hasn’t lost the audience’s sympathy.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times, 16 April 1982

“Smash Palace should be top ranked too because its story demands and gets so much more from its actors than most films dare to try for… It’s a wrenching portrayal of a marriage breakdown. Its script asks often for mercurial transformation of emotions… Bruno Lawrence is Al Shaw, a racing car driver who is back from the European circuit to run Smash Palace, the wrecking and towage yard left him by his father. Al is a solid New Zealand figure with as much space between his words as the bush territory around him. He has certain brooding determinations – in a primitive environment to do just a few things with care and affection… Al is basically a frontiersman and when he starts to realise he really has lost his wife, and his child also, he begins to get rough. Jacqui’s answer is to keep the child from him with a non-molestation order through the courts. Al gests his shotgun, kidnaps the child, and goes bush. But he’s a man of care and affection, gentle too, and the script is still running at a high level as Al discovers it’s his child’s birthday. Camp-oven cake and big adult-sized candles to celebrate, but what about a present? ‘It’s just like your one dad,’ cries a delighted Georgie as she unwraps his Swiss Army knife. Those kinds of touches, and the power of the story and the acting, have made the film so absorbing…. I’d predict that Smash Palace will be one of 1982s best films, from any source, and for the New Zealand industry itself, the most mature film yet.” — Geoff Chapple, NZ Listener, 16 January 1982

Screenings: Smash Palace screened on 29 June 2005 as part of a selection honouring the work of actor Bruno Lawrence; it screened on 8 March 2006; and again on 24 October 2007 as part of Sleepers Awake, a season celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Sleeping Dogs and the 80s film making revival.