Head On

European Poster

19 year-old Ari is confused about his sexuality and his Greek background. He’s obsessed with sex and drugs, has several gay encounters and a half-hearted attempt to make love to the sister of his best friend. To complicate poor Ari’s life even further he’s having problems with his traditional Greek parents who have no idea of their son’s rather bizarre life style.

Set in Melbourne Australia, the birth place of director Ana Kokkinos and based upon a novel Loaded written by Christos Tsiolkas. The action in Head On (1998) takes place over a 24 hour period and has a great soundtrack using alt-rock and techno pop which fits in brilliantly with the style and period of the movie. There are terrific performances from both Alex Dimitriades, who won an AFI Award nomination for his role of Ari and Paul Capsis as his transgender friend Johnny. I believe the film is an honest attempt to deal with the problems between a young mans sexuality and his obvious devotion to his family and their old world ways while attempting to be true to him self, Ana Kokkinos has not made a bad job of it.