This is a small film but the cinematography is beautiful. The performances of the two main actors is also wonderful and it quite deserves the awards it won. This film tells no big stories of the interaction between the white and aboriginal communities (although it shows the inherent racism of the mainly white police force). What this film does leave me with is a sense of two real, marginalised, teenagers trying to make sense of their place in the world and willing to undertake what journeys are necessary to find those places.
25 Reviews
screening with director's Q&A May 13 2002
oddur_thomas13 May 2002
Ivan Sen was a guest of the Dendy art-house cinema group at the advance screening I attended. He spoke about the script writing process, casting and funding hurdles at length.
The previous 6 years of Ivan's career have been devoted to producing short films; all of which have thematically built towards the story in 'Beneath Clouds'.
Taking its title from the Pearl Jam song 'Black', the film shows two young people (Lena and Vaughn) who escape from restrictive situations to rendevous with a remote parent in a search for love and validation ... only it is not clear if that love will be returned.
Sen wrote the script from his own experiences growing up in Alice Springs with an Aboriginal mother and an absent European father (like Lena) and his full-blooded cousins constantly in and out of juvenile courts and detention centres (like Vaughn and Lena's brother). He said that at first writing a feature-length script was difficult given his past film efforts ran to a maximum of 30 minutes. However, the interim draft boasted 140 pages. During and between script-writing he listened to lots of music (not only Pearl Jam!) and wrote some musical phrases and themes that become the film sound-track in the hands of Alistair Spence. The final script was 90 pages, and, by neat coincidence, the running time of the film is exactly 90 minutes!
Vaughn was cast by approaching a young man on the streets of Moree. Damian Pitt was initially incredulous at being asked to play a lead role in a feature film, but was quick to come around. The approach of casting Lena, explained Sen, was more conventional. Although he tried to recruit a female lead in the same way as Damian was found, the process of driving by, pulling up slowly, rolling down the window and asking 'do you want to be in a movie?' was fraught with too many sleazy connotations to be taken seriously by the young women he approached! Through a friend, Sen viewed an audition tape featuring Danielle Hall, and though initially ambivalent, the director was awestruck after meeting her in her hometown of Wee Waa and immediately sensed her ability to identify with the character and project the lines of the script as if they were her own. Obviously, judges at the Berlin festival were equally moved. The remainder of the cast were largely amateur, recruited around Moree.
Funding for the film was conditional on it being a feature, to enable it to travel the worldwide festival circuit as a stand-alone picture. Chief funding bodies were the NSW Film Commission and the Pacific Film & TV Commission - the former association ensured all location filming was in NSW. Roads and scenery around Moree, Gunnedah, Blacktown and Sydney show a great dynamic range of terrain and geography. From the time of the green-light of funding to shooting took only 4 months; the shoot went for 6 weeks; and post-production/editing took 6 months; all at a cost of 2-and-a-half million Australian dollars (roughly one-and-a-quarter mill. US dollars). Not cheap by Oz standards but not expensive either in an international sense.
My impression of the film is of a modern classic, up there with Gallipolli, Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. It was well-deserving of the attention of the Berlin jury, and Ivan the auteur and musician has a great future ahead of him. His next project will be a black comedy set in Mexico about people who visit a small town hoping to be abducted by aliens.
Mr Sen, best of luck, and please don't get all indulgent like Russell Crowe or Billy Bob Thornton by fronting a lame rock band! Keep it real.
The previous 6 years of Ivan's career have been devoted to producing short films; all of which have thematically built towards the story in 'Beneath Clouds'.
Taking its title from the Pearl Jam song 'Black', the film shows two young people (Lena and Vaughn) who escape from restrictive situations to rendevous with a remote parent in a search for love and validation ... only it is not clear if that love will be returned.
Sen wrote the script from his own experiences growing up in Alice Springs with an Aboriginal mother and an absent European father (like Lena) and his full-blooded cousins constantly in and out of juvenile courts and detention centres (like Vaughn and Lena's brother). He said that at first writing a feature-length script was difficult given his past film efforts ran to a maximum of 30 minutes. However, the interim draft boasted 140 pages. During and between script-writing he listened to lots of music (not only Pearl Jam!) and wrote some musical phrases and themes that become the film sound-track in the hands of Alistair Spence. The final script was 90 pages, and, by neat coincidence, the running time of the film is exactly 90 minutes!
Vaughn was cast by approaching a young man on the streets of Moree. Damian Pitt was initially incredulous at being asked to play a lead role in a feature film, but was quick to come around. The approach of casting Lena, explained Sen, was more conventional. Although he tried to recruit a female lead in the same way as Damian was found, the process of driving by, pulling up slowly, rolling down the window and asking 'do you want to be in a movie?' was fraught with too many sleazy connotations to be taken seriously by the young women he approached! Through a friend, Sen viewed an audition tape featuring Danielle Hall, and though initially ambivalent, the director was awestruck after meeting her in her hometown of Wee Waa and immediately sensed her ability to identify with the character and project the lines of the script as if they were her own. Obviously, judges at the Berlin festival were equally moved. The remainder of the cast were largely amateur, recruited around Moree.
Funding for the film was conditional on it being a feature, to enable it to travel the worldwide festival circuit as a stand-alone picture. Chief funding bodies were the NSW Film Commission and the Pacific Film & TV Commission - the former association ensured all location filming was in NSW. Roads and scenery around Moree, Gunnedah, Blacktown and Sydney show a great dynamic range of terrain and geography. From the time of the green-light of funding to shooting took only 4 months; the shoot went for 6 weeks; and post-production/editing took 6 months; all at a cost of 2-and-a-half million Australian dollars (roughly one-and-a-quarter mill. US dollars). Not cheap by Oz standards but not expensive either in an international sense.
My impression of the film is of a modern classic, up there with Gallipolli, Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. It was well-deserving of the attention of the Berlin jury, and Ivan the auteur and musician has a great future ahead of him. His next project will be a black comedy set in Mexico about people who visit a small town hoping to be abducted by aliens.
Mr Sen, best of luck, and please don't get all indulgent like Russell Crowe or Billy Bob Thornton by fronting a lame rock band! Keep it real.
Tips for non-Australian viewers
quarrion21 December 2003
I have little to add to the excellent reviews above. Tarkovsky? Tykwer? No wonder I loved it. I shall go away and have a good think about those connections.
My contribution is a bit of information about Australian aboriginals that may help non-Australians appreciate this exquisite movie.
1. It is normal for Australian aboriginals to take a while to speak to each other (or anyone) if they are strangers. When thinking about this I compared the film to Eric Rohmer and to Iranian films about young people. Iranians and Rohmer characters chatter endlessly about trivia but the powerful effect of the movie creeps up on you in the same way.
2. It is easy to miss the moment in which Vaughan discovers that Lena is Aboriginal. This is an important turning point in the film. To avoid spoiling I'll only give you a tip. An older person is involved and there is no discussion. If you watch for it you will see it.
My contribution is a bit of information about Australian aboriginals that may help non-Australians appreciate this exquisite movie.
1. It is normal for Australian aboriginals to take a while to speak to each other (or anyone) if they are strangers. When thinking about this I compared the film to Eric Rohmer and to Iranian films about young people. Iranians and Rohmer characters chatter endlessly about trivia but the powerful effect of the movie creeps up on you in the same way.
2. It is easy to miss the moment in which Vaughan discovers that Lena is Aboriginal. This is an important turning point in the film. To avoid spoiling I'll only give you a tip. An older person is involved and there is no discussion. If you watch for it you will see it.
Deceptively simple
Philby-32 June 2002
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.
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.
Very Australian
da_lil_azn0128 August 2006
With the concept of what Australian is being challenged and revised in contemporary Australian society, this film hits home hard. A challenge for a connection with the great geography of the Australian landscape and an identity crisis. It reinforces the Aboriginal context of Australian history and the effects of what modern Aboriginality deals with. Fabulous movie! Emotive, raw and definitely Australian! 'Beneath Clouds' also captures the spirit of Australian youth and the mateship that had underpinned almost every friendship of every Australian. The Australian spirituality of inextricable connection to the land is also emphasised through the scenery filmed. A personal journey is also presented: beautiful, intimate and detailed. Though the characters share dissimilarity, it is the force that brings them together and reinforces the Australian notion of mateship, identity and spirituality.
quiet sincerity
SnoopyStyle25 June 2016
Lena is blonde-haired and blue-eyed. Most see her as white at first glance. She has an Aboriginal mother and an Irish father. When her mother gets her brother arrested, she decides to leave. She fails to get back on the bus at a stop. She starts walking and is joined by Vaughn. He escaped from low security prison work detail to go home to see his sick mother. The two struggle over views as they sometimes hitch rides.
There is a quiet sincerity personified by Lena. It is slow at times with its quietness. However, there is also a magnetism about the two leads. The young actors possess a dignity and power within them. It's an intriguing theatrical debut for filmmaker Ivan Sen.
There is a quiet sincerity personified by Lena. It is slow at times with its quietness. However, there is also a magnetism about the two leads. The young actors possess a dignity and power within them. It's an intriguing theatrical debut for filmmaker Ivan Sen.
breathtaking in all simplicity
charly22 October 2004
I was fascinated by the atmosphere of this film. The lots of
close-ups together with the attracting photography and the
sensitive performance of the two young people make this a
breathtaking film. The easy-going rhythm of the film feels never as too slow but is
inherent to the character of the aboriginals. The soundtrack also gives this film an extra dimension and is very
enjoyable. Together with "rabbit-proof fence" and "picnic at hanging rock" one
of the Australian films which impressed me most.
close-ups together with the attracting photography and the
sensitive performance of the two young people make this a
breathtaking film. The easy-going rhythm of the film feels never as too slow but is
inherent to the character of the aboriginals. The soundtrack also gives this film an extra dimension and is very
enjoyable. Together with "rabbit-proof fence" and "picnic at hanging rock" one
of the Australian films which impressed me most.
Aussie Road picture
billcr1227 October 2023
Beneath Clouds is a character driven drama with two great performances by the lead actors. Lena(Danielle Hall) hides the fact that her mother is Aboriginal and only recognizes the whiteness of her Irish father.
Vaughn(Damian Pitt) is a young Black man who escapes from a prison farm in order to visit his dying mother in Sydney.
Along the road the two meet up and it becomes a road trip with the pair on screen for a majority of the movie. Vaughn lectures Lena on the horrible racial history of their nation. His partner idealizes her father and says that she wishes to leave Australia to live in Ireland.
My only complaint is the lack of subtitles and at times, this American had trouble understanding the Aussie accents.
Danielle Hall and Damian Pitt make Beneath Clouds a worthy film.
Vaughn(Damian Pitt) is a young Black man who escapes from a prison farm in order to visit his dying mother in Sydney.
Along the road the two meet up and it becomes a road trip with the pair on screen for a majority of the movie. Vaughn lectures Lena on the horrible racial history of their nation. His partner idealizes her father and says that she wishes to leave Australia to live in Ireland.
My only complaint is the lack of subtitles and at times, this American had trouble understanding the Aussie accents.
Danielle Hall and Damian Pitt make Beneath Clouds a worthy film.
Pure cinema, sublimely conveyed, essential humanity
FilmartDD5 June 2005
No doubt about it, Ivan Sen is the most talented film-maker working today in Australia. Others gain passing publicity, but Sen already has a notable body of work . Everybody, demand to see Sen's short film WIND in 35mm. This man has pure cinema senses -- pictorial, musical, content-wise and with actors. There is hardly a word spoken that matters, it is all in the aching faces, the hesitant gestures and the bleak settings of the country road. In politics and personnel administration, BENEATH CLOUDS would speak with humanity that cannot be denied, far more powerfully than any speeches, procedures or texts. Evidently not released to video overseas, no picture in IMDb's box - pity that basic business follow-up has not occurred for this fine film.
The Stoicism and Rural Isolation of Beneath Clouds
kristjanbuckingham8 November 2019
Easily labelled as simply a road-trip movie, coming-of-age film, or slice-of-life; Beneath Clouds is an unexpectedly complex story, which depicts the journey of Lena and Vaughn, two Australian teenagers of aboriginal descent, making their way to Sydney. Light-skinned Lena is able to pass as white, whereas escaped juvenile convict Vaughn is preceded by his heritage, and the prejudice that comes with it, wherever he goes. Director Ivan Sen manages to share an intimate look at the two leads without actually letting the audience get too close.
The two main characters are different in many ways, allowing the film to explore issues of gender, race, and poverty through the lens of their experiences. One thing they do have in common, however, is their stoicism. Both of these characters maintain a hardened demeanor throughout most of the film. Dannielle Hall, who plays Lena, is particularly subtle, making the glimpses into her emotions all the more effective. Vaughn, played by Damian Pitt, does lash out a few times, quickly becoming defensive and threatening violence when challenged, but it is clear that this behaviour hints at a deeper vulnerability which he is unwilling to confront. It isn't until the end of the film that we really get to see Lena and Vaughn express their feelings, when they must come to terms their respective journeys playing out much differently than they had imagined.
There is a bluntness to their candor that cuts through niceties and allows Lena and Vaughn to connect using plain, often crude language. Although they are both quick to pass judgment on one another, they also surprise each other with their motivations. Lena doesn't hesitate to call Vaughn a "' loser" and tells him he'll end up "like the rest of 'em" until he tells her that this is his only chance to visit his sick mom. Seemingly not one for apologies, Lena doesn't respond to this information, but softens her oppositional attitude toward Vaughn.
For the majority of the film, Lena and Vaughn are hitchhiking their way to Sydney, following the highway across vast stretches of plains under the open sky. Wide shots show off the landscape, poignantly expressing both the isolation of rural life, and the promise of possibility that lies beyond. Beneath Clouds is firmly set in the Australian countryside, but the references and colloquialisms only further serve the universality of their story, and how it could just as easily take place in the Canadian prairies, or any number of places.
This movie deals with socio-economic struggles, racial discrimination, sexist behaviour, and themes of violence and abuse, but at its core, Beneath Clouds is a story of longing to escape the conditions we are born into, and to search for meaning, connection, and a feeling of belonging.
Lena and Vaughn will likely continue this struggle long after we part with them, but at least we leave them knowing they were able to find that connection and understanding, however briefly, in each other.
A film with a lot of right ideas, but without much success in realizing them.
SteveSkafte7 October 2010
The basic approach of "Beneath Clouds" is admirable. It's exactly the quiet, personal type of story I usually love. But here, it's too quiet. Breathing room finds itself drifting into meaningless space. There's a kind of politeness on display here, in the way the action is filmed, how the characters interact. They take too many turns in dialogue, allow for more room than would come naturally. It's awfully polite. The actors themselves are good enough - Dannielle Hall, especially. She provides a convincing lead performance, enough to ground the story in a more personal way. I was less impressed by Damian Pitt. Neither of them have gone on to pursue an acting career.
Ivan Sen wrote and directed this film, and all of its main strengths and weaknesses come down to him. He focuses on character, but in a way that pushes against the grain. He seems intent on making his characters talk and act in ways that are less than believable. He focuses on cinematography, but in a way that feels too clean and bright and artificial. His landscapes seem more like postcards. He writes a script designed to be a large-scale adventure/road trip, but provides hardly enough content to pad out an hour and twenty minute film. Even at that, it feels woefully overextended.
"Beneath Clouds" has a fair amount of potential. Indeed, the first twenty minutes promise a film of considerably more adventure and believability than is ultimately delivered. It's a good effort, but without much spark.
Ivan Sen wrote and directed this film, and all of its main strengths and weaknesses come down to him. He focuses on character, but in a way that pushes against the grain. He seems intent on making his characters talk and act in ways that are less than believable. He focuses on cinematography, but in a way that feels too clean and bright and artificial. His landscapes seem more like postcards. He writes a script designed to be a large-scale adventure/road trip, but provides hardly enough content to pad out an hour and twenty minute film. Even at that, it feels woefully overextended.
"Beneath Clouds" has a fair amount of potential. Indeed, the first twenty minutes promise a film of considerably more adventure and believability than is ultimately delivered. It's a good effort, but without much spark.
Sad but true
imdb-1042028 December 2005
Ultimately the fact that Vaughn doesn't recognise Lena as a fellow Aboriginal underlies the whole youthful crisis of identity that is so poignantly illustrated in this film. It's simple to gloss over the whole black vs. white thing, but these two kids are on the same journey, have the same problems and don't know what they're going to find when they get where they're going. That could be anyone, and Vaughn doesn't realise this at first.
Having said that you can take just as much from the film in terms of what it is to be young, aboriginal and male in Australia, as opposed to young, white (which everyone in this film seems to simply assume of Lena due to her freckles) and female. Both are judged and abused as a consequence of their identity... I must say I do get a bit sick of the constant portrayals of an unavoidable culture of racism in Australia, and there's the one guy who gives them a lift in the film (without really saying anything) who is obviously designed to counter-balance this. I guess I'm just hanging out with the wrong people! I initially saw the first 60 minutes of this film on television but had to tear myself away to show up to some social engagement that I was consequently late for. I hired it on DVD to see the last 30 minutes, but watched it again from the beginning thinking I could skip some scenes - I didn't. It was well worth watching again from the beginning.
It's an utterly pointless plot (it's a road trip) which becomes a beautiful story about the relationship between the two main characters and their personal aspirations of family. And it's amazingly illustrated. Highly recommended, and I'm off to look for the NZ version that another commentator here claims it was based on... but then again they do say something along the lines of "there are only 13 scripts in Hollywood".
Compulsory viewing for all schools in Sutherland Shire and Lakemba. Anyway I'm blabbering now. I just wanted to give it a nine.
Having said that you can take just as much from the film in terms of what it is to be young, aboriginal and male in Australia, as opposed to young, white (which everyone in this film seems to simply assume of Lena due to her freckles) and female. Both are judged and abused as a consequence of their identity... I must say I do get a bit sick of the constant portrayals of an unavoidable culture of racism in Australia, and there's the one guy who gives them a lift in the film (without really saying anything) who is obviously designed to counter-balance this. I guess I'm just hanging out with the wrong people! I initially saw the first 60 minutes of this film on television but had to tear myself away to show up to some social engagement that I was consequently late for. I hired it on DVD to see the last 30 minutes, but watched it again from the beginning thinking I could skip some scenes - I didn't. It was well worth watching again from the beginning.
It's an utterly pointless plot (it's a road trip) which becomes a beautiful story about the relationship between the two main characters and their personal aspirations of family. And it's amazingly illustrated. Highly recommended, and I'm off to look for the NZ version that another commentator here claims it was based on... but then again they do say something along the lines of "there are only 13 scripts in Hollywood".
Compulsory viewing for all schools in Sutherland Shire and Lakemba. Anyway I'm blabbering now. I just wanted to give it a nine.
Beneath Clouds
jazzpiano-26 February 2008
Firstly, I am shocked at all the positive reviews for this film. On a superficial level it is a fine film; technically very strong and well-paced. However, the film is full of so much contradictory stereotyping and half-baked social commentary that it falls flat on its face. The acting is also terribly wooden, and I doubt I can find the kindness within myself to call it 'understated'. The music comes in when any small drama occurs, and the audience is pushed to care for two characters who really never become likable because they are played by two blank-faced actors.
I am particularly intrigued as to why an Aboriginal director would want to perpetuate the stereotype of his people - Drugs? Guns? Tattoos? Domestic abuse? Teenage pregnancy? Drinking? EVEN an eyepatch? Aren't you going a bit far? And every time director Sen tries to de-construct or analyse this stereotype he ends up reverting back to it (one specific example is when Vaughn spits in the cop's face). The stereotyping of white police is especially brutal - there is not one decent cop around according to this film. In fact, white people in general are not too favourably looked upon. The only nice white person in this film is an old man who gives our two heroes a lift, and possibly the conveniently named "Sean", which gives the Irish-wannabe Lena a little pang.
The other white characters try to kidnap Lena or treat Aborigines disrespectfully.
The camera-work is often too obvious. A hand-held camera arrives to shake things up whenever an upset occurs. A fight, the threat of violence, sickness - the hand-held camera is there to tell us, "Wow, isn't the situation getting intense!", but after spending so much time establishing a static mood through gratuitous landscape and time-lapse shots of clouds, the hand-held is an obvious symbolic device and director would've done better keeping his style consistent. The use of tracking shots was often very disrupting to the flow of the film as well, except in the last sequence where it is quite effective.
But unfortunately by that stage, I couldn't care less what happened to the characters, as they stared blankly at each other 'til the end.
The one thing to admire about this film, however, are the good intentions behind it. This movie failed on an emotional engagement level, but for the sheer effort involved in its making, and its technical triumphs, it gets 5/10, which I think is fair.
I am particularly intrigued as to why an Aboriginal director would want to perpetuate the stereotype of his people - Drugs? Guns? Tattoos? Domestic abuse? Teenage pregnancy? Drinking? EVEN an eyepatch? Aren't you going a bit far? And every time director Sen tries to de-construct or analyse this stereotype he ends up reverting back to it (one specific example is when Vaughn spits in the cop's face). The stereotyping of white police is especially brutal - there is not one decent cop around according to this film. In fact, white people in general are not too favourably looked upon. The only nice white person in this film is an old man who gives our two heroes a lift, and possibly the conveniently named "Sean", which gives the Irish-wannabe Lena a little pang.
The other white characters try to kidnap Lena or treat Aborigines disrespectfully.
The camera-work is often too obvious. A hand-held camera arrives to shake things up whenever an upset occurs. A fight, the threat of violence, sickness - the hand-held camera is there to tell us, "Wow, isn't the situation getting intense!", but after spending so much time establishing a static mood through gratuitous landscape and time-lapse shots of clouds, the hand-held is an obvious symbolic device and director would've done better keeping his style consistent. The use of tracking shots was often very disrupting to the flow of the film as well, except in the last sequence where it is quite effective.
But unfortunately by that stage, I couldn't care less what happened to the characters, as they stared blankly at each other 'til the end.
The one thing to admire about this film, however, are the good intentions behind it. This movie failed on an emotional engagement level, but for the sheer effort involved in its making, and its technical triumphs, it gets 5/10, which I think is fair.
the bleak and the beautiful
ma_teng9 July 2002
Warning: Spoilers
***possible spoilers***
A movie so well conceived and executed that, like a Tarkovsky film (I'm not kidding), the story acts merely as a quiet vehicle for more important and more powerful things - barely expressed but wrenchingly felt emotions, the inescapable clutch of landscape and fleeting moments of profound beauty and joy within a life of violence, humiliation and despair.
Beneath Clouds reminds me very much of an SBS TV doco also directed by Ivan Sen called Shifting Shelter, in which a small number of Aboriginal Australian youths are interviewed twice across a period of a year or two. That too was quiet but affecting, and seemed to point to the inevitability in life among the least affluent of the Aboriginal communities across rural Australia.
Who knows? Maybe it's Sen's own background that allows potential road movie and Aborigine cliches to come off fresh and convincing. Supporting actors with the smallest parts to play come off convincingly as separate characters rather than fodder for the narrative, something that few directors seem to value - Martin Brest being an exception. I suspect too that there's a whole bunch of stuff that only Aboriginal viewers will recognise.
Scenes to treasure - (1) the mute, elderly Aboriginal woman in the back of the car who is the *only* character in the film to correctly identify the heroine as Aboriginal (in her only line of dialogue), who shudders at the sight of the killing mountain, and who, apparently out of sheer experience, neither moves nor speaks as her relations are assaulted by police.
(2) Arthur Dignam, that wonderful actor, in an austere cameo as the one white person (rural gentry? urban middle class retiree?) who lends a hand to the fleeing couple, no questions asked.
(3) Having established a bond, the two leads, each and alone, looking into the eyes of animals they encounter, distracting them just long enough from their predicament to sense something beyond what imprisons them. When they first start their trek the animals they see instead are roadkill.
The casting is outstanding; the last movie like this to use amateurs so effectively was probably Pixote.
Beneath Clouds doesn't have the sexy tagline or superhuman behaviour of a film like Rabbit Proof Fence. It offers only the smallest glimmer of hope in the face of overwhelming circumstances. But it makes total sense and punches deep inside. If Ivan Sen can make a better feature film than this then Australia can only rejoice.
A movie so well conceived and executed that, like a Tarkovsky film (I'm not kidding), the story acts merely as a quiet vehicle for more important and more powerful things - barely expressed but wrenchingly felt emotions, the inescapable clutch of landscape and fleeting moments of profound beauty and joy within a life of violence, humiliation and despair.
Beneath Clouds reminds me very much of an SBS TV doco also directed by Ivan Sen called Shifting Shelter, in which a small number of Aboriginal Australian youths are interviewed twice across a period of a year or two. That too was quiet but affecting, and seemed to point to the inevitability in life among the least affluent of the Aboriginal communities across rural Australia.
Who knows? Maybe it's Sen's own background that allows potential road movie and Aborigine cliches to come off fresh and convincing. Supporting actors with the smallest parts to play come off convincingly as separate characters rather than fodder for the narrative, something that few directors seem to value - Martin Brest being an exception. I suspect too that there's a whole bunch of stuff that only Aboriginal viewers will recognise.
Scenes to treasure - (1) the mute, elderly Aboriginal woman in the back of the car who is the *only* character in the film to correctly identify the heroine as Aboriginal (in her only line of dialogue), who shudders at the sight of the killing mountain, and who, apparently out of sheer experience, neither moves nor speaks as her relations are assaulted by police.
(2) Arthur Dignam, that wonderful actor, in an austere cameo as the one white person (rural gentry? urban middle class retiree?) who lends a hand to the fleeing couple, no questions asked.
(3) Having established a bond, the two leads, each and alone, looking into the eyes of animals they encounter, distracting them just long enough from their predicament to sense something beyond what imprisons them. When they first start their trek the animals they see instead are roadkill.
The casting is outstanding; the last movie like this to use amateurs so effectively was probably Pixote.
Beneath Clouds doesn't have the sexy tagline or superhuman behaviour of a film like Rabbit Proof Fence. It offers only the smallest glimmer of hope in the face of overwhelming circumstances. But it makes total sense and punches deep inside. If Ivan Sen can make a better feature film than this then Australia can only rejoice.
Australian classic
imdb-857026 May 2012
Beneath Clouds...a classic movie, perhaps Australia's greatest. One of those rare scripts which includes long, silent expression as a big part of the dialogue. There is real magic in Dannielle Hall's face, on which the camera loves to linger for us. A fine study of blind racism and budding first love, with long distance trucks and ramshackle cafés grubbying the purity and mythic power of the Aussie outback as telling backdrop. All built on the classic form of road trip as attempted escape to a better world, punctuated with stops by hostile cops and other familiar dangers, but miraculously free of any taint of deja vu as a genuine bond emerges between two young people beset by the power and corruptions of a multi tribal adult world. And all is bound together seamlessly by the long held, steadying music, composed by Ivan Sen as he wrote the screenplay for his striking directorial accomplishment.
Totally Unexpected Subtlety
bk_heather12 August 2013
Enough to say that I did not go looking for this movie.....it found me and transfixed me while I was channel surfing....and watch it I did - enthralled by the atmospheric capture.
Recently I was traveling in outback rural Australia and so many memories stirred of places that I knew in childhood ..... One pub or store little towns with clapboard houses and the poorest of the poor both socially and economically and the dreams one dared not dream as a young person...
This movie was excellent in so many ways.....following Lena home I was almost shocked to enter her life at home....I knew families that lived like that, watching the teenagers hanging out together....the memories surfaced.
I did not ask anything from the plot....there is no point asking when you find circumstances like this to negotiate but there was enough reality for me that I came looking today to read more about the movie, the actors and the producers etc - job well done ...the discomfort of rural youth well captured along with he rural magic
Recently I was traveling in outback rural Australia and so many memories stirred of places that I knew in childhood ..... One pub or store little towns with clapboard houses and the poorest of the poor both socially and economically and the dreams one dared not dream as a young person...
This movie was excellent in so many ways.....following Lena home I was almost shocked to enter her life at home....I knew families that lived like that, watching the teenagers hanging out together....the memories surfaced.
I did not ask anything from the plot....there is no point asking when you find circumstances like this to negotiate but there was enough reality for me that I came looking today to read more about the movie, the actors and the producers etc - job well done ...the discomfort of rural youth well captured along with he rural magic
Excellent Film
stickdemup19 April 2020
woeful robot acting...decent story line
jay-sears20 May 2008
Why all the great reviews baffles me. The acting is awful but i agree the story line is OK.
This film would have so much more justice if the actors had shown more emotion and non robotic movements. It was like watching slow robots. The story line is reasonable and would have worked better if there was more action in the film - i'm not saying fights but more emphasis to have some exciting scenes in the middle. The film drags on a bit so expect a slow, slow, slow movie.
The scenery is great but that does not put you off from wondering how any of these actors got a job. If only the acting was great I would love this film but it is terrible. If anyone has watched good actors they would realise that they were terrible, non emotional robots.
Another promising OZ film, another flop in acting! Don't waste your time cringing on the acting by watching this movie. Watch something else instead.
Worst acting i have ever seen.
This film would have so much more justice if the actors had shown more emotion and non robotic movements. It was like watching slow robots. The story line is reasonable and would have worked better if there was more action in the film - i'm not saying fights but more emphasis to have some exciting scenes in the middle. The film drags on a bit so expect a slow, slow, slow movie.
The scenery is great but that does not put you off from wondering how any of these actors got a job. If only the acting was great I would love this film but it is terrible. If anyone has watched good actors they would realise that they were terrible, non emotional robots.
Another promising OZ film, another flop in acting! Don't waste your time cringing on the acting by watching this movie. Watch something else instead.
Worst acting i have ever seen.
A story of lost souls
dallas_nyberg8 February 2017
It's always tricky to make a movie that might blindly be perceived as a black vs white melodrama when here it's not really the case. For me this movie is a simple told story of lost souls. Two young people, one in search of an almost fanciful re-connection with her wayward father and the other, desperate to see his mother before she dies. The two young lead actors do a fine job of portraying their characters. Although the dialogue is a bit twee at times, it still manages to get the message across to the viewer. The cinematography is great, utilizing the sometimes stark, but beautiful Western Plains district of New South Wales to full advantage. I did think that the scenes involving the pair's interactions with the police were, at times, a bit over the top. Other than that, this is a good movie.
It is sad to note, that Damian Pitt, who played Vaughn, was killed in a car accident near Grafton NSW in 2009
It is sad to note, that Damian Pitt, who played Vaughn, was killed in a car accident near Grafton NSW in 2009
amazing cinematography, thoughtfull story
imagopher19 November 2003
a story of a young half-caste aboriginal girl in australia who is on a journey from her broken home in the country to sydney where her father, an irishman, lives. On her journey she meets a young boy who is on his way home aswell, after escaping a youth detention camp in the outback. The theme of conflict between Australian aboriginals and whites is presented in the journey. The boy is heading towards a future of problems and she is on her way to hope. I saw this movie at the Australian international film festival in sydney and had a chance to talk with the director after. It was two years ago but when i sit down to start a new script i am always reminded of this films subtle beauty and perfect structure. an amazing piece of art, i highly recommend it
Very realistic and eerily so true on many levels
savelyleyoung29 October 2016
As I have grown up with a lot of similarities of Lena I find the movie very emotional and close to my heart.
The small town kids with no real direction for their future other then smoke, drink and do petty crime. Lena with a white dad and Aboriginal mum, in my case it was a white mum and Aboriginal dad.
The violence which isn't really shown to much in the movie, the longing to belong to one culture or another and the analogy of travelling to find a better future.
Iven has obviously lived the same sort of life especially in the earlier ears if his life to portray such a factual story.
Damien Pitt a natural actor and passed away to early to see the depth of his acting skills and Danielle Hall were remarkable in this movie. Why either of them didn't try for bigger things I could understand the small town life and especially the Aboriginal cultural issues and to break free from such strong community connections is very difficult.
I couldn't give it any less than 9
The small town kids with no real direction for their future other then smoke, drink and do petty crime. Lena with a white dad and Aboriginal mum, in my case it was a white mum and Aboriginal dad.
The violence which isn't really shown to much in the movie, the longing to belong to one culture or another and the analogy of travelling to find a better future.
Iven has obviously lived the same sort of life especially in the earlier ears if his life to portray such a factual story.
Damien Pitt a natural actor and passed away to early to see the depth of his acting skills and Danielle Hall were remarkable in this movie. Why either of them didn't try for bigger things I could understand the small town life and especially the Aboriginal cultural issues and to break free from such strong community connections is very difficult.
I couldn't give it any less than 9
Beautifully simple and atmospheric
peter_kotroczo11 February 2006
There are very few movies that I will want to watch more than once, but Beneath Clouds is definitely one of them.
The majority of movies I have seen over the past years were very much focused on plot development and I think most viewers will expect a movie to be heavy on the storyline.
What I expect from a movie is something totally different, though. None of my favourite movies have a a memorable or particularly well developed storyline. However, they all have something in common. All of them have a very powerful and gripping atmosphere, and it is this atmosphere that comes to my mind whenever I think back of these movies. Not a particular scene, a particular quote or a masterly twist in the storyline, not the visual effects or the sophisticated sound.
This movie would be just as enjoyable watching it from a low quality videotape on a black and white telly with low sound quality.
Beneath Clouds instantly became a favourite with me, from the very first moments I started watching it. I love this movie, simply because it gives you an experience, a combination of vision, sound, thought and emotion that cannot be described with words and that is exactly what I expect from a movie.
If you think what I am saying here is b.ll.cks and doesn't make sense - well, it's up to you. But if you know what I am blathering about you will understand and LOVE this movie. Wochit.
The majority of movies I have seen over the past years were very much focused on plot development and I think most viewers will expect a movie to be heavy on the storyline.
What I expect from a movie is something totally different, though. None of my favourite movies have a a memorable or particularly well developed storyline. However, they all have something in common. All of them have a very powerful and gripping atmosphere, and it is this atmosphere that comes to my mind whenever I think back of these movies. Not a particular scene, a particular quote or a masterly twist in the storyline, not the visual effects or the sophisticated sound.
This movie would be just as enjoyable watching it from a low quality videotape on a black and white telly with low sound quality.
Beneath Clouds instantly became a favourite with me, from the very first moments I started watching it. I love this movie, simply because it gives you an experience, a combination of vision, sound, thought and emotion that cannot be described with words and that is exactly what I expect from a movie.
If you think what I am saying here is b.ll.cks and doesn't make sense - well, it's up to you. But if you know what I am blathering about you will understand and LOVE this movie. Wochit.
similarity to Tom Tykwer's work
jugulum617 February 2003
I thoroughly enjoyed Beneath Clouds, and thought it was a fantastic film all round...especially since it is part of the rise of Aussie films dealing with Aborigines (both historical and contemporary). The main thing that struck me with the film, however, was the similarities it had with Tom Tykwer's work (specifically The Princess And The Warrior, and to a lesser extent Heaven). I thought the mood, depth of emotion and the manner in which the story was told was almost identical to Tykwer's work. I mainly am writing this to see if anyone else shared my thoughts on this. Considering that Tykwer is one of my favourite directors I guess this was the only aspect of the film that disappointed me (there's nothing wrong with either mimicking or coincidentally sharing stylistic aspects, it's just that I couldn't stop thinking 'this is a Tykwer film' when watching it).
Only Australian movie I've seen... and it was great!
TuuliL18 September 2002
For a foreign, the language is pretty hard to understand, because they use lot of slangwords.. Well. I liked this film. The aggregate is beautiful and harmony and I think it's categorized as an art film... I'm not sure, but that's what I was told to. The movie is about white girl and black guy, their sad stories and hate which becames to friendship and then love.
Sincerest form of flattery?
zig-zag28 February 2003
If Starlight Hotel(NZ)(1987) had got so much as half the recognition it deserved, Beneath Clouds would not be able to even rear its head.
Initially this ran as a most beautiful work of art, then around halfway through I began to realise I had seen it all before.
See if this sounds familiar. Starlight Hotel is a road movie about a young girl who leaves home to seek out her estranged father. She teams up with a guy who is on the run from the law and they have recurring close encounters with the law, as well as folks who help them. After you see how the leading ladies in both films are framed and the way they are placed into circumstance, the parallels become complete.
I was disappointed that this film did not make a better effort to be unique.
Zig Zag
Initially this ran as a most beautiful work of art, then around halfway through I began to realise I had seen it all before.
See if this sounds familiar. Starlight Hotel is a road movie about a young girl who leaves home to seek out her estranged father. She teams up with a guy who is on the run from the law and they have recurring close encounters with the law, as well as folks who help them. After you see how the leading ladies in both films are framed and the way they are placed into circumstance, the parallels become complete.
I was disappointed that this film did not make a better effort to be unique.
Zig Zag
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
