Hotel Coolgardie (Prime)

[MockneyReject]

Has anyone watched this?
I needed to distract myself from a family 'thing' last night. I came across this and it looked interesting, but it really, really bothered me. I'm not sure how much of that is because I'm feeling sad, anyway.
I was awake for ages, afterwards, reading reviews and, I think, hoping to find something to refute/contradict the ending.

It's a documentary/film about 2 young female backpackers, sent by an agency, to do a 3 month stint as bar staff at a remote pub in a small mining town in Western Australia. They had been robbed in Bali, so needed/wanted to earn enough money to buy a car and drive around Australia.

The thing I feel worst about is that I actually laughed, literally 'lol'd a few times.

I'd be really interested in what others made of it.

Possibly in terms of being too drunk to consent but if perp was drunk too, he could argue the same. Anthony was drunk on Jack Daniels early on, apologised after for wanting to stay on the couch, had an honours degree, seemed slightly less depressed than the others but wasting his time getting drunk after motel shifts? Have I remembered him correctly? Dave seemed innocuous. James and Steph should have been looking out for her more. James seemed pleasant enough, from Wales iirc, and knew what the culture was like. The crew also could have intervened. I thought all five got hammered over several hours and sadly, Coffee's prediction was accurate.

Coffey

@SequinsandStiIettos

Possibly in terms of being too drunk to consent but if perp was drunk too, he could argue the same. Anthony was drunk on Jack Daniels early on, apologised after for wanting to stay on the couch, had an honours degree, seemed slightly less depressed than the others but wasting his time getting drunk after motel shifts? Have I remembered him correctly? Dave seemed innocuous. James and Steph should have been looking out for her more. James seemed pleasant enough, from Wales iirc, and knew what the culture was like. The crew also could have intervened. I thought all five got hammered over several hours and sadly, Coffee's prediction was accurate.

I feel the same way. It was an embarrassing drunken one night stand of the type that makes you cringe hard the next morning. But I don't think it was sinister. She and Steph didn't seem to think so either.

I also worked in Leonora,it was one of my favourite places to go, but you really needed to know what you were doing and what you were letting yourself in for.
The guys can actually be v protective if you accept them.
The aboriginal issue was not something I was equipped to deal with at all so I just stayed in the pubs and kept my mouth shut.
I think things have changed a lot.

Back then there were Skimpy bars/nights all over WA, but Kalgoorlie is the main town for it.

Whereas Pikey's attitude, vitriol towards women, disdain towards Lina and uninvited appearance in the flat seemed much more dangerous, had the film crew not been there.

That was it, wasn't it, as far as the men went there was an unspoken expectation, a quid pro quo... You earn your money for 12 weeks, provide us with someone new to ogle/wank over and all will be well. But reject us/don't play ball and we'll project all our frustrations and hurt onto you. Some of the reviews nailed this and interviews with the director make it clear the tensions kicked in straight away. Thing is, Lina did try. You could see her try. And even Steph went for the day with Jamie, to be polite/have an escape. But compared with the personality of the oggie oggie oggie oi oi oi Welsh lasses, who were up for drinking and flirting, the Finns came across as aloof, as they said you don't have that happen in Finland. Whereas if you have been brought up in a small Welsh ex- mining village, where everyone knows everyone else and there might not be much to do... You'd be used to making your own entertainment, lock-ins and holding your own with the locals.

Lina and Stephie, with English as a second language, limited bar experience/not au fait with Ozzie brands and slang, not used to a bingedrinking culture, there as a means to an end, are sitting ducks.

I agree with the rest of your post, but coming from Finland, Steph and Lina would be very much used to a bingedrinking culture!

God, I've only got to 1 minute 54 seconds and I'm angry already!!!

Australian men are proper cunts

I never met anyone as bad as Pikey, but I also never met a Manager, or other guys who would have tolerated his behaviour for a second either.

The first pub I ever worked in was the Foundry in Kalgoorlie for anyone who knows/knew of it.
That was a baptism of fire, but I grew to love it, ditto The Federal, and I met my then Bf in The Golden Eagle in Boulder, he's actually Dd's Dad, and from a v middle class family from Sydney!
My SIL doesn't even know the lyrics to Khe Sanh which cracked me up

Coming from Finland, Steph and Lina would be very much used to a bingedrinking culture!
Ah, okay, I thought because alcohol was so expensive there, same as Norway, that any bingeing was done at home rather than in bars. I am of course not considering getting smashed before you go out .
Shall google it now!

@SequinsandStiIettos

Coming from Finland, Steph and Lina would be very much used to a bingedrinking culture! Ah, okay, I thought because alcohol was so expensive there, same as Norway, that any bingeing was done at home rather than in bars. I am of course not considering getting smashed before you go out . Shall google it now!

Yes, you're right, the drinking is mostly done at home due to the cost of alcohol. But binge drinking it certainly is and anyone who works in a bar would be used to very inebriated punters!

www.statista.com/chart/5357/the-worlds-worst-countries-for-binge-drinking/
omg!
I stand very much corrected - Finland come in fifth!
How can they afford it? They must have hip flasks
Am surprised the girls weren't more used to pissed up blokes then. Disclaimer - not that alcohol excuses shitty behaviour.

@SequinsandStiIettos

www.statista.com/chart/5357/the-worlds-worst-countries-for-binge-drinking/ omg! I stand very much corrected - Finland come in fifth! How can they afford it? They must have hip flasks Am surprised the girls weren't more used to pissed up blokes then. Disclaimer - not that alcohol excuses shitty behaviour.

At the risk of generalisation, the Finns are a famously dour and taciturn lot. The joke being that "An introverted Finn looks at his shoes when talking to you. An extroverted Finn looks at your shoes."

I'd imagine drunk Finns probably spend the evening starting into their vodka rather than engaging in offensive 'banter' with the barmaids? It's a very egalitarian society too, so maybe that helps?

Tbf they'd possibly never drank in bars much themselves, I'm from a small city in the NE and we were big binge drinkers back then.
At 43 I can't remember the last time I was in a pub and my own 20yr old drinks rarely.

When I think of drunk Finns I think of Kimi Raikkonen in his younger days which obviously isn't typical!

Did anyone else who knows the culture wonder about Anthony?
He had a degree and was working in the motel.
Do you think it was a similar job as in, come out here for 3 months, free bed and meals, and he'd got caught up in the culture?
I met similar guys in Kal who'd had everything going for them, went there for the money and got stuck.
The clever ones knew their limits, worked hard, earned their money and left.

I wouldn't want to traumatise the girls any further but I do wish there was more available as to how they feel about it now. Steph hasn't done any interviews at all.
Similarly, given the director started filming two weeks before the girls went there, I'd have liked to have seen more of Clio and Becky rather than just the complicit good-gal screenshot. Seeing the two brunettes at the end start the cycle again might have been more complete.
I am always a bit suspicious of verite, it always feels like constructed reality

I'd be interested to hear from Becky and Clio too.
I just don't want to go there with the Aboriginal issue, its far too complex, I couldn't work it out myself even then, or now tbh, so I don't even try.
It was only an issue for me in Leonora, not a problem though.
It didn't come up in a direct way involving me anywhere else.

I could give you two completely different perspectives of working those pubs, and I easily worked in 30, and my overall take is positive, from that time, from that way of life.
It's absolutely not for everyone, and it did end badly for them, though again, I wonder how much the medical stuff came down to the pub.
I can say that everytime I needed medical help, there was no problem getting it, completely free of charge with medicare, and even in a small outback town, which Kalgoorlie is not and its v close to Coolgardie.
I had a spider bite in Mount Magnet ffs!

I also feel a little uncomfortable with Clio and Becky being called complicit.
I don't think its that as much as you know your job, you accept your job, you get paid very well comparatively and you accept it or don't do it.
I'm not sure I was complicit, rather that it was a different place, a different time in my life and I absolutely had boundaries, and insisted they were respected, I'd say 95% of the guys and 99% of the managers would back me up too.
I'd love to go back and visit, see what its like now.
Obviously it is like hicksville in the program, but even in 99-2001 Kalgoorlie had decent pubs, nice restaurants, cinema, shopping etc which wasn't shown at all.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don't think they were complicit in upholding a pre-established misogynist culture - I think the director portrayed them as complicit in making the new girls' jobs harder. When they first came on screen, I thought they came across well and were helpful to the girls. But later they were shown specifically hugging patrons, dancing on the bar, drinking and going up to the flat. It wasn't that they didn't do those things or that they were wrong to do them - it was the compare-contrast narrative the director wanted.
So an edit - you do those things, you say those things - nonetheless, the juxtaposition is an interesting tool. So the Welsh girls ended up portrayed as up for it pissheads, rather than just celebrating their last week, and aligned to the locals rather than allies to the newbies.

Yes, that makes more sense but is also the way I'd have come across.
It was unfair as it was a couple of nights of them celebrating finishing their job, they must have been good barmaids to have lasted, and first and foremost, being a good barmaid is the most important thing.
Steph and Lina had not bar experience and it didn't seem that anyone actually helped them, or showed them properly, working an Aussie Outback bar just for the drinks is different, so they were already at a disadvantage.
Manager guy clearly was a cunt.
I'd honestly put most of the blame on.

1. The Agency
2. The Manager

I still think they were probably in the wrong job, in the wrong place, but it should never have happened.

I'm still not sure the health problems should have been in the film, if you are travelling you need to be able to take care of your own health.
I did, and I travelled on my own for two years.

I also took a then 1yr old to Indonesia on my own for 10 weeks, and coped with the Bali bomb when I was in Lombok, and being in hospital with malaria.

Wow! Are you a writer? (I have a hazy memory of a woman in that situation. Don't worry, I cannot out you, I don't remember her name!)
Kudos though. I am always in awe of travellers really travelling. I did au-pairing but very short assignments. Lived in another country for over a decade. Proper travelling though - nah, am way too soft. I liked Australia when I went but I was neither camping nor hostelling.
What's the best place you have ever visited?

The mind plays tricks. It wasn't you Kai (have replied btw) and it wasn't the Bali bomb at all; it was Ariel Levy's account of giving birth prematurely in Mongolia (trigger warning for anyone who has lost a child). Not sure why I thought of it. Probably because of travelling, women, vulnerability. It flicked a switch somewhere.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/11/18/thanksgiving-in-mongolia

No, I'm not a writer, I just went travelling when I was younger and worked in the bars as it pays well.
Its hard to get a job as a backpacker, I'm not sure about now, but back then there were very few jobs, lots of others went fruit picking which was quite possibly worse.
I'll always have a soft spot for Kal, it served me well and its a brilliant place if that's what you want.