(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) DOES THIS TOWN ever feel small to you? While Dubai's rapid expansion over the last few decades has been immense, we're sure we're not the only ones who feel their social circles sometimes seem a little tight. Work, the gym and the local watering hole, from where most of us draw our companions, only hold so many people leading to the same faces continuously popping up.
Rumours and gossip can often abound in tight-knit communities the world over and it is this universal phenomenon upon which The Dressmaker capitalises.
Set in 1950s rural Australia, Jocelyn Moorhouse's film stars Kate Winslet as fashion designer Tilly Dunnage, a woman forced to leave her country hometown at an early age for the suspected killing of a school bully. Tilly goes on to become a celebrated haute couture specialist in the capitals of Europe. After 20 years and with a Clint Eastwood Western-like flourish Tilly returns to look after her now social outcast mother and set the record straight, plotting perhaps a little revenge on those who banished her.
Running parallel with the film's plot is director Moorhouse's story of returning to the movie business after time away. Her first film since 2002's Unconditional Love, the Muriel's Wedding producer says getting back in the saddle was exciting.
"I didn't say Tilly's first line in the movie, 'I'm back you bast***s!' because I loved my crew, but the feeling of coming back with something to prove did enter my thoughts."
Moorhouse was talking to us over the phone from her native New South Wales ahead of The Dressmaker's UAE release today.
Taking an all-star cast of Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, The Matrix star Hugo Weaving and My Brilliant Career's Judy Davis to the back of beyond (next to the location of 2003's Ned Kelly starring Heath Ledger) to recreate the closed-minded small town atmosphere of a '50s Aussie farming community wasn't the easiest task at first says Moorhouse.
"It got very hot and Kate got driven crazy by the flies. She kept saying 'what is it with these insects!' The locals kept saying, 'you're in the country Kate!'"
Thankfully with most of the extras hailing from the same village as the author of the novel upon which the movie is based, those used to the conditions outnumbered the Hollywood set and the outsiders soon settled in.
"It was an inspiring place to film," added Moorhouse.
"There were emus wandering through takes, possums hanging down and frightening Judy and Kate.
"Those country towns haven't changed much since the film's period. They are still dusty and full of flies and colourful characters."
The colourful characters in The Dressmaker include Tilly's mother Molly (Davis), almost looked upon as a witch by many of Dungatar's inhabitants and local police constable Farrat, Tilly's only true friend from the past whose lifestyle choice and love of fashion could be called unconventional of a 1950s bobby. Persecuted with gossip and accusations by the local straight-laced population, it takes Tilly's homecoming with the help of love interest Teddy (Hemsworth) to expose the hypocrisy and exaggeration of their words.
"Australia has a history, perhaps more so than anywhere else, of being a little hostile to people who are different," says Moorhouse as she reflects on her own experience with bullying. "Myself I came from the city and only had the usual experiences for those who want to have a life that's more artistic than most. I was seen as a nutter as a child. But my family always supported my dreams. I've never been victimised but I have sympathy for those who are."
Moorhouse went on to explain that having two children born with autism, a reason why she had to take so much time off movie making, has opened her eyes to the cruelty victims can experience.
"They have to go through a lot of people misunderstanding them. Nearly on a daily basis."
Since her break Moorhouse now relishes being back at work and has struck an equitable home/film set balance - a subject she would often discuss with Winslet who chooses only a few scripts a year, even those that take her to the Australian outback, for the same reason. Moorhouse says, despite being the only English person on set, she fit right in.
"We think of her as an honorary Australian anyway. She did Holy Smoke and was so convincing. She belongs to us. We share her with England.
"I was having a ball every day with all the cast. It was a delicious experience. That's the wrong word. I did not eat the actors! They were all such great examples of fine acting."
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