Harvey in a frock?
Watch out, everyone

New York critics are hailing Jane Campion's new film "Holy Smoke" as "refreshing" and "clever", as PHILLIP McCARTHY reports.

Director Jane Campion obviously likes Harvey Keitel to feel comfortable on her set. In several scenes in Campion's latest film, Holy Smoke, Keitel appears in a red dress as he woos co-star Kate Winslet. It's a sight almost as thrilling as his full-frontal nude shot in the last film he and Campion made together, The Piano. This time the director took a novel approach to making her macho star throw off his inhibitions and get in touch with his feminine side. She encouraged all the male members of the crew - everyone from the make-up artists to the carpenters - to don frocks during the several days that Keitel's drag scenes were filmed. "The solidarity was marvellous and they got really possessive about their outfits," she says. "They kept wanting better dresses. There was one really big guy and all he could find to fit him was a nightie, so suddenly he became very aware of the problems of the bigger woman. I wasn't sure that Harvey was even going to do the role because it's a very challenging one for a Hollywood star - not that he's a star in the conventional sense. But Harvey really wanted to play it. He really liked the script. And he loved the red dress. You know, deep down any actor likes to put on a frock."

In Holy Smoke it's Winslet - she of the Rubenesque body - who does the full-frontal nude shot. In the film she plays a Krishna-style convert and Keitel is an American "cult deprogrammer" called in by her horrified but rather clueless family in Sans Souci. The story takes off when the deprogrammer falls under the emotional spell of the "client" he is trying to save, and, in Campion's words, "crosses a few bridges of his own".

Campion was speaking after the first screening of her film at the New York Film Festival where, as the major Australian entry, it has been one of the most anticipated draws of the two-week schedule. With its drag and costume parties in the outback, and allusions to dysfunctional suburban Australian families, the film struck some New York critics as resonant of the work of Australian directors like P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding) and Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert). Campion herself seemed to see the film as a more eclectic mix of styles, ranging from bawdy comedy to serious drama.

In Australia, the film created something of a controversy when it was shown at last month's Venice Film Festival, with several critics suggesting that the movie was a dud. But an informal survey of New York Film Festival critics by the Heraldsuggested that the movie was likely to get a fairly enthusiastic reaction, with "refreshing" and "clever" the typical assessments.