A Dollar for the Good Ones
Originally published without a star rating in the first issue of VHS Tracking (November 2016), a film zine edited by Tristan Fidler which is presented in the format of those ‘We Recommend…’ pamphlet guides once available in video rental stores. You can grab a copy at Highgate Continental and The Bird in Perth, Sticky Institution in Melbourne, or by contacting vhstrackingzine@gmail.com.
A Dollar for the Good Ones (Josh Lee, 2004)
★★★★
My recommendation comes from our own backyard.
In A Dollar for the Good Ones director Josh Lee observes a few days in the life of his childhood friend Luke, who has become a heroin addict. With his sidekick Jermaine in tow, Luke finances his habit by sneaking into the local golf course at night in a wetsuit, retrieving sunken balls from the lakes, bleaching them, and selling them back. The ones in good nick, as the title suggests, fetch a dollar. Set in and around the Perth suburb of Karawara where Lee grew up, the film presents images and sounds of a city that few of us will know. There are no cranes or cafés here; only rundown houses, overgrown yards, barking dogs, aimless and penniless people.
On paper the film sounds agonisingly grim, but on screen, its compassion, tenderness, and unexpected moments of humour are what linger. Lee’s film is many things: an important record of a time and a place; a tribute to the resilience of the underclass, which taps into a century of documentary tradition; and a moving lament for a friend who lost his way, and who wasn’t as lucky as the rest of us.