Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

"The Price of Milk" is a tough sell (pun definitely intended). It's a movie that I hadn't heard of (until reading voxpoptart's review; I now understand why he took the vague and ethereal track he did), made by people I'd never heard of or seen before. But, in doing some background research, I realized that I had run across a number of its contributors via their participation in another recent Kiwi-produced film (or, more precisely, film series).

Before I get to the review proper, please indulge me as I connect the dots between "The Price of Milk" and "The Lord of the Rings". Think of it as my way of easing you into the world of this most puzzling film, by introducing elements that you are familiar with, and most likely comfortable with:

Harry Sinclair, this film's writer/director, appeared in "The Fellowship of the Ring" as the vanquisher of Sauron, King Isildur. His lead actor, Karl Urban, made a quick impression in "The Two Towers (and will also appear in "The Return of the King") as Éomer. Lawrence Makoare, who plays one of the nephews here (more on them later), was unrecognizable as Lurtz, the head Uruk-Hai, in "Fellowship". Behind the scenes, we have producer Tim Sanders, soundman Ray Beentjes, and, most importantly, Frances Walsh. Ms. Walsh, whose work on "Milk" is unspecified, co-wrote the scripts and helped produce all three "Lord of the Rings" movies.

Okay, so with that trip through the known completed, let me take you through the unknown universe of "The Price of Milk".

"The Price of Milk" is your typical boy meets girl, boy loses girl when girl suddenly becomes antsy about their seemingly perfect relationship causing her to sabotage boy's dairy farm by trading all his cows for a quilt to a mysterious Aboriginal woman and her dozen or so golf-playing nephews while tricking boy into thinking that an army of little elf people did it by using her suitcase full of baby shoes, boy gets girl back story. Could anything be simpler?

Alas, it probably could, if the film didn't also indulge in… wait for it… magic realism (Ach! No! Not that!). Okay, maybe you don't have the adverse reaction to that rhetorical technique that I often do. But I thought a warning was in order. The oddball cinematic antics make the film tough to follow at first, but they also provide for some startling imagery. For example, we are treated to a scene where a young couple frolics naked in a vat of milk (his pale bum is nearly invisible amongst all that calcium). We also get some strange moments where cars, seemingly on their own, gently turn upside down. And then are stacked one on top of another. And, in a moment that neatly reverses the old "Princess and the Pea" story, we see an old woman covered by about a dozen quilts. Because she's cold, natch.

Quilts, strangely enough, are the film's most important motif. From the whimsical opening credits -- which play out over a nocturnal game of quilt tug-o'-war -- to the dreamy final image, while making a stop through the aforementioned bartered blanket, the stitched-together symbols run rampant throughout the story. Obviously, our characters are looking for warmth and togetherness. I say "obviously", but really, in this film, who's to know?

Sinclair's knack for curiously wondrous imagery makes the magic realism go down easier. But it is its effect on the narrative that makes the film all the more confusing.

The film starts out conventionally enough. Rob (Urban) works his New Zealand dairy farm all day, much of his time spent talking lovingly to each of his 117 heads of cattle. At night he heads back to his trailer, where his wife Lucinda (Danielle Cormack) is waiting for him with a hot meal and love in her eyes. Rob and Lucinda are your typical simpatico romantic pair; no one else in the world would fit with either of them, yet they seem to have each found the perfect partner. That is, until Lucinda starts to go a bit nutty. The first signs? She begins disappearing. In the middle of conversations. Poof! Rob, an easygoing sort, doesn't think much of this at first. He's not even visibly put out when he has to go looking for his vanished wife every once in a while. This kind of setup would indicate, to me, that Rob will be the audience's surrogate, the eyes through which we see the world of the film.

But things take a perplexing narrative turn when Rob suddenly disappears (not literally, mind you; but his departure accomplishes the same thing). We are then forced to see the story through Lucinda's eyes. But remember: Lucinda has a bit of off-kilter magic in her. So all that we see is called into question. Is this really happening? Are those floating baby's feet in the sky real? Has their trailer really become sentient? Up becomes down, black becomes white, cats fall in love with dogs, and the audience begins to pay rapt attention. This shifting of narrative focus is probably the main reason why I didn't dig the movie on first viewing. I am now able to appreciate it much more given the benefit of a few days' hindsight.

Urban and Cormack have wonderful chemistry together. They play the kind of lovey-dovey characters that your more reasonable audience member would want to smack, were they not so utterly adorable. Rangi Motu as Auntie, the Aboriginal woman who may or may not have inadvertently pushed Rob and Lucinda off onto their spectacular journey, is creepy and mythical in equal supply. She and her nephews only increase the magical elements of the story (and even add one Monty Python-inspired moment of lunacy, when the boys finally figure out the best way to keep Auntie warm).

"The Price of Milk", if you haven't already surmised, is a tough film to pin down. Part romantic fable, part supernatural thriller, and part farmer's how-to guide, it is different enough and strange enough to recommend, but confusing enough to warn against. I'll hedge my bets and recommend the darned thing. But don't say I didn't warn you.

[Special thanks to beckytcy, who returned my quizzical looks while we watched the video together, confirming my suspicions that what I was seeing on screen was as weird and nearly as incomprehensible as I thought.]

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS