Film Criticism as Cultural Fantasy: the Perpetual French Discovery of Australian Cinema (book review)

From the perspective of French Studies in Australia, Andrew McGregor's book performs a number of functions, perhaps the most useful of which is its reframing of the tension between "French" and "Australian" Studies. Indeed, there is a curious paralleling of the attitude of French reviews of Australian films - by turn enthusiastic and patronising, but always conscious of the tension between distance and familiarity - and the disciplinary boundaries that perpetuate mythologies of others' disciplines, which are such that French Studies, deprived federally of its own Field of Research code, is perceived forever as the interloper, be it in Literary Studies, Historical Studies, Curriculum Studies or, in this case, Film and/or Australian Studies.