Marion Heathfield Movies

Australian director Paul Cox, skilled at intense psychological stories about lone souls looking for comfort in a cold world, was at his best with this original script co-written by the director and Barry Dickins. Martha is a 78-year-old woman living out her final days. Not a maudlin tale of a lonely woman wasting away, A Woman's Tale focuses on a human who manages to maintain an amazing vitality in the face of death. She encourages her young nurse, Anna (Gosia Doborowolska), to use her flat for romantic trysts; she looks in on Billy (Norman Kayes), an elderly neighbor, and she resists attempts by her son Johanathan (hris Haywood) to place her in a nursing home. Sheila Florance's performance as Martha is a marvel, especially given the art-imitates-life aspect of production: Florance was terminally ill, and she died soon after she was nominated for the Best Actress Award for Australia's Academy Awards. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

This grim drama examines the situation of Aya (Eri Ishida), a Japanese war bride living in Australia in the late forties. Her husband has little use for her cooking or her company, aside from sex, but a family friend who also knew her during the war offers a more generous form of companionship. Perhaps he would have married her, too, but he's probably homosexual. Later, she has an affair with a Japanese/Australian and conceives a child. Her attempt to abort the fetus lead her to a particularly repellent abortion doctor. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi