Oscar nominee Ledger Lights Up Film About Heroin Addicts at Berlinale
Wed, Feb 15, 3:59 PM ET



Oscar nominee Heath Ledger's latest film "Candy" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, showing the Australian actor disappear into the skin of a heroin addict.

Ledger and fellow Australian Abbie Cornish play aspirant artists and lovers whose addiction tears them apart, even as they marry and try to sweat it out of their systems side by side.

The two actors become arguably the best-looking people on screen to suffer withdrawal on a bare mattress, and for all the sordidness of their descent "Candy" often seems like a long, beautifully-filmed love poem.

Director Neil Armfield said he wanted to show what was so attractive about heroin that so many people allow their lives to be destroyed by it, and to avoid cinema's usual cliches about drugs.

"There must clearly be something fantastic, wonderful about heroin and I was trying to show esthetically, sensually with music and images what is going on inside these characters."

The film is based on a novel by Australian author Luke Davies who told reporters he spent several years taking drugs.

"I hope their is some emotional truth in the film from the fact, that yes, I spent several years in that world."

But Armstrong said ultimately his film, the only Australian production in the festival's competition line-up, was about people's desire to seek pleasure in any form to the point of destruction.

"Heroin is just a metaphor in the centre of the drama. The characters are trying to live in a state of eternal pleasure, they are trying to eternalise their love," he said.

"The world is obsessed with perpetual pleasure, we try to keep what is good, take out what is bad and live that moment forever. It is very human and ultimately very tragic."

Ledger, whose performance as a gay cowboy in Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" has earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor, said he researched the role by talking to a man who has been addicted to drugs for 25 years.

"He opened a bag and took out a prosthetic arm. He had used it to show young junkies how to inject themselves, so we sat and injected a plastic arm for an afternoon."

He said the challenge of the role was creating sympathy for somebody who lets his girlfriend prostitute herself so that they can have the money to score drugs.

"You have to show his denial, I tried to make it human."

Ledger, whose Hollywood career slumped after a good start, said he owed his comeback to director Terry Gilliam who offered him a part in the fantasy film "The Brothers Grimm".

"When he said he wanted to work with me, other people became interested too."

Ledger said he planned to take another year off from acting and dismissed the industry and media hype around the Oscars.

"It creates a false sense of success and a false sense of failure. We are all just dragged through it."

The Berlinale runs until Sunday, with 19 films competing for the Golden Bear main prize.


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