A ‘Little Picture’ in the Land of the Giants

With the May 27 release of their new film, “Rikky and Pete,” Australian film makers Nadia Tass and David Parker were dealt a double whammy.

It was bad enough that their intimate film about growing up deep in Melbourne was opening the same Memorial Day weekend that the megahyped “ ‘Crocodile’ Dundee II” and “Rambo III” were unspooling. Worse, said Parker, in going up against “Dundee II,” “it felt like we were competing with Australia itself, the way Paul (Hogan) is thought of up here.”

“What it also means,” said Parker, who wrote, photographed and co-produced the modestly budgeted “Rikky and Pete,” “is that there’re gonna be an awful lot of Americans out there thinking Australian right about now. And that can only help us.”

“But people shouldn’t expect a lot of gunfire and people pulling knives,” said director co-producer Tass. “We’re from the same country, all right, but not from the same film making galaxy, really.”

The couple said that “Rikky and Pete” was picked up for American distribution by United Artists after Tass and Parker’s 1986 “Malcolm” walked off with the equivalent of eight Australian Oscars and did surprisingly well with American audiences.

Both Tass and Parker are delighted to have an American major studio behind “Rikky and Pete.” “My surprise was great when I saw the care they were giving our little picture,” Tass said. “I was cynical, and my cynicism was overcome, mostly.”

Parker said he was encouraged at the studio’s response to “Rikky and Pete” because it was “so different” from “Malcolm.” “They have some things in common, but we focus a lot more on people, and their relationships and their releases . . . than we did before. I think it’s because I myself grew up some in the interim.”

Both Tass and Parker agreed that maturity for this husband-and-wife team meant smaller, “more honest” films, not $50-million budgets. “I’d get so confused by a production of that size that I’d seize up,” Tass said. “I’m sure of it. It would be like, ‘Damn it, where’re my seven ADs (assistant directors)?’

“When you start getting bigger, and the budgets keep getting larger, you lose your attention to detail, and you start thinking muzzily,” Tass continued. “ ‘Rikky’ was a bit more expensive than ‘Malcolm,’ but not much. I just don’t want to feel out of control.”

The need for Tass and Parker to be involved in all aspects of the production of “Rikky and Pete” included shooting the film’s mine scenes nearly a mile underground in a Queensland mine shaft.

“It was . . . well, it was an ordeal, all right,” allowed Tass, who said she’s claustrophobic. “But--I hate to sound really artistic here--I knew that faking the mine shots somewhere else wouldn’t look right. And sending just part of the crew down there . . . well, I wouldn’t have been happy about that either.”

“Yeah, I was all set to go down into the shaft (as cameraman) and . . . take the movie over !” continued Parker melodramatically. “Actually,” he went on, “I was very proud of Nadia. I knew how hard it would be for her . . . but you can’t really protect your director now, can you?”