Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)

July 22, 2000

Hope penetrates hell

Byline: ALISON BARCLAY

A young priest brings a glimpse of heaven, writes ALISON BARCLAY

HAD David Wenham arrived on the set of Molokai: The Story of Father Damien and changed his mind - tough!

For the actors on the remote Hawaiian island of Kalaupapa, as for the leprosy sufferers exiled there in the 19th century, there was no easy way out.

Of course, Wenham, Peter O'Toole, Sam Neill, Kate Ceberano and the rest of Molokai's star-rich cast had no desire to escape. But as soon as Wenham stepped ashore he realised why this fragrant paradise was once a fetid and desperate hell.

``It is surrounded by the most treacherous waters in the world, so you can't swim to escape. It has the tallest seacliffs in the world, so you can't climb out,'' he says.

Wenham plays the title role in director Paul Cox's homage to a young heroic priest.

``People with this disease were sent there to die. There was no support whatsoever.

``It was a time of hysteria. People were paranoid,'' he says.

``Anyone suspected of having this disease -- if you had a scratch on you -- you were shipped off to this island to rot and die. No one was willing to go and work with these people until Father Damien volunteered.''

That was in 1872, when the fervent young Belgian priest went to this dumping-ground to ease the lepers' spiritual suffering. He found them in appalling squalor and fought doggedly for nurses and supplies.

Though not a doctor, Father Damien helped kill the terror and spread the facts about leprosy, laying a path for cool-headed research and control in the 20th century.

``I think as Paul Cox would say, it's about a true hero; it's not a shoot-'em-up sort of hero,'' he says. ``This is a person who inspired Mother Teresa and Gandhi to do their work.

``He is certainly well known in the Catholic community right around the world . . . and I don't think there's a more famous historical figure in Belgium.

``It was strange to have an Australian actor playing a Belgian,'' he says, ``but it's great that there are no boundaries to international casting.''

The cast and crew lived in simple huts on the island, which receives supplies by boat only once a year and expensive air freights for pantry top-ups.

This made filming hard, but as Wenham says, ``I suppose it mirrored what Father Damien went through 100 years before.''

The best part of the project, he says, was working with the island's remaining residents, now elderly and ``totally accepting'' of their disease.

There is no longer a bar to their leaving Kalaupapa, but they choose to stay. Many of them appear in the film.

``It's a fantastic community. It is full of love and support and there's a great amount of joy there,'' Wenham says.

But will leprosy take their lives?

``The disease doesn't kill you, but the secondary infections do,'' he explains.

Molokai is set for international release, which probably means Wenham is destined to be Australia's next big-screen star.

ADD to this Dust, the film he has just made with director Milcho Manchevski in Macedonia, and legions of European admirers should be poised to pounce.

Manchevski, who directed the SBS favorite Before the Rain, cast Wenham as an American cowboy who runs away from home, makes his way to Macedonia and joins a rebel army against marauding Turks.

``I would describe the film as an Eastern Western,'' the actor says.

Wenham is now back in Melbourne rehearsing for a film by Robert Connolly, director of The Boys. In The Bank he plays a mathematician employed by the latest public enemy No. 1. ``It's our anti-banking film,'' he says cheerfully.