NZIFF: Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line

Defying the traditional rock ’n’ roll narrative, this is the story of how a young Australian hard rock band developed a political conscience and brought their audience along with them.

Midnight Oil is not your typical band, so it makes sense that this is not your typical rockumentary. Sex and drugs play little if any part in this tale. Neither will you find the kind of rivalries and tensions that one comes to expect of a band with a career as long as this one.

Formed at high school by drummer Rob Hirst and guitarist Jim Moginie and soon joined by singer and frontman Peter Garrett, after almost five decades together they regard each other with a respect and camaraderie that looks a lot like love.

From their beginnings, playing high-octane rock to Sydney surf crowds, the developing social conscience of Garrett saw the group’s music become increasingly political, leading to Garrett eventually taking leave to become a member of Parliament. Yet in a climactic moment, we see how a rock band can use its platform in ways that are denied even to a politician.

If there is a single This Is Spinal Tap element, it is in the revolving cast of bass players, though the group’s response to the death of their longest-serving bass player, New Zealander Bones Hillman, is just one of the film’s many genuinely moving moments. — Nick Bollinger