Sounds of Australia, with Film Composer Antony Partos
A career — and a life — coloured by music
It was on an aeroplane in June 2010 that I first heard the music of Antony Partos. I was thirteen, flying home to Western Australia with my older brother to spend the summer holiday with our Dad. I was flicking through the in-flight entertainment, and, this being a Qantas service, there was a typically large supply of Australia-made media. The film that immediately caught my eye was something called Accidents Happen, featuring a promo image of Geena Davis standing in a kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand.
Having seen Beetlejuice and The Long Kiss Goodnight just a few months prior, her mere appearance pretty much sold it for me as I would have happily watched Geena Davis peel eggs, if it meant she got in front a camera.
I watched the film in awe and, in the ensuing decade since, have never rewatched it. In the best possible way, I have never needed to — the boldness of the film’s stand-out moments, revolving around a perennially unlucky but resolutely plucky family in early-80s America, have always stayed with me. It is the film that forever reminds me of Australia, of home, its opening shot of a water sprinkler twirling in slow motion stamped into my memory.
