Beneath Clouds (2002)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Ivan Sen

Writer:

Ivan Sen (writer)

Release Date:

23 May 2002 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Beneath Clouds is the story of Lena, the light-skinned daughter of an Aboriginal mother and Irish father and Vaughn...

Plot Keywords:

Irish | Northern Territory Australia | Hitchhiking | Identity | On The Road

Awards:

6 wins & 11 nominations

Cast

Dannielle Hall	...	Lena
Damian Pitt	...	Vaughn
Jenna Lee Connors	...	Ty
Simon Swan	...	Jimmy
Mundurra Weldon	...	Liam
Athol French	...	Kevy
Judy Duncan	...	Jen
Kevin Pitt	...	Smiley
Arthur Dignam	...	Old Man
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tristan Bancks	...	Dean
Winston Brearley	...	Young Constable
Roger Adam Smith	...	The Corn Farmer

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Sweden:11 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia

Company:

Australian Film Finance Corporation (AFFC)

Trivia:

Actor Damian Pitt had no previous acting experience and was spotted by director Ivan Sen in Moree in a group of 20 boys. Sen said he "had the perfect look".

Deceptively simple

This is a deceptively simple story of two young people, both on the run, meeting up on a rural New South Wales road. Both are aboriginal and both are, for family reasons, headed for Sydney. Nothing particularly dramatic happens but there is enough incident to keep the viewer watching, and perhaps see life as it is for alienated young blacks in contemporary Australia.

The director, Ivan Sen, has a strong visual sense, and he captures the land with breathtaking vistas (he also wrote much of the music). It is not the outback, it is the central west New South Wales of big commercial farming – cotton, sunflowers and corn, yet even the big farms are dwarfed by their surroundings. The young couple proceeds through this magnificent landscape beneath the clouds of the title preoccupied by their own problems, though the boy (Damien Pitt) is angrily aware that this is the land taken from his forbears. She (Danielle Hall) on the other hand rejects her Aboriginal background and focuses on her Irish father and the green misty land he came from.

The dialogue is pretty sparse and the delivery often a little wooden but the two leads express the emotions required more than adequately. Their relationship could not be further from a conventional teen romance, rather they are two emotionally stunted people who come to realise they can still care for someone else.

As for the rest, there are the inevitable black brothers in clapped out HQ Holdens, a just cruisin' but still hassled by the police, and plenty of hostile or merely patronising whites. One old white man (Arthur Dignam) does give them a lift but most whites give our couple a wide berth. I thought the story required a little more development; the film describes a situation rather than tells a story, but it does so with great simplicity and honesty. It's a cliché I know, but I await Ivan Sen's next work with great interest – he's a considerable talent.