Brian Trenchard-Smith and the charm of Ozploitation
Nobody sets out with the intention of being remembered as a pivotal figure in an entire movement of cinema, but Brian Trenchard-Smith nonetheless endures as one of the most important filmmakers in the Ozploitation boom that upended the conventions of Australian cinema in the 1970s and 1980s.
An offshoot of the Australian New Wave cycle that had ignited at the turn of the decade, the local government sought to give its own on-screen culture a shot in the arm by launching the Australian Film Commission, and before anybody knew what was going on, the scene had becomes swamped by a slew of bizarrely brilliant and certifiably bonkers slew of genre-bending movies.
Trenchard-Smith’s first feature was the quasi-documentary The Love Epidemic in 1975, but it was the release of The Man from Hong Kong the same year that set out his stall. A demented co-production between Hong Kong and Australia, the manic film combined the standard trappings of the martial arts genre with satirizing the likes of James Bond and Dirty Harry, made even more pronounced by having George Lazenby playing a major role.
From then on out, the filmmaker would spend the next decade acting as almost the living embodiment of Ozploitation. Nothing was off-limits for the newfound and incredibly fruitful period, with rock and roll cinema the order of the day as no medium proved itself off-limits, whether that was action and romance or horror and sci-fi.
Deathcheaters followed two Vietnam veterans-turned-stuntmen hired by the government to mount a daring raid, Stunt Rock lived up to the billing of its title as an intentionally preposterous mockumentary actioner, Turkey Shoot carried shades of Mad Max and finds wealthy adventurers hunting humans for sport in a dystopian society, BMX Bandits gave an early role to Nicole Kidman in a family comedy that doubled as a crime caper, while Frog Dreaming channelled the spirit of The Goonies to create a distinctly Australian spin on the kid-friendly adventure story.
Trenchard-Smith knew what he was good at and stuck to it, carving out such a reputation for the lurid and outlandish that he even called his autobiography Adventures in the B Movie Trade. He didn’t intend to reinvent the wheel, but he proved himself to be among the best when it came to applying a distinctly local flavour to productions that ticked the boxes associated with some of cinema’s most well-known genres and famous films.
Caked in the dust and sweat of Australia’s vast expanses, Ozploitation was often crude, rebellious, outrageous, ludicrous, and lo-fi, but that was all part of its charm. As Trenchard-Smith put it himself when speaking to Flashback Files, “I’m guilty as charged, I don’t make Shakespeare,” not that anybody wanted him to be tackling the Bard when his own approach had helped shape an entire era of local filmmaking.
It was a hugely important aspect of reviving an industry that was in danger of stagnating, signalling to the world that as much as the New Wave could create prestigious works of cinema comparable to anything that was being put out in Hollywood, Australian talent was also more than capable of doing the exact same with boundary-pushing genre fare.
