Beneath Clouds
BENEATH CLOUDS
Ivan Sen (2002)
NOTES
* Opening credits: Images of rolling clouds, vast and immense, threatening and powerful. * Two female, high school students dressed in uniform walk a barren landscape. The only colour and movement comes from the trucks that roar through. Isolated, Aboriginal community. * Walk past an indigenous man carrying a jerry can of petrol. Stereotypical image of addiction. Lena in a thick Australian accent: “Whadda dickhead.” Clear from this dialogue that her values are very different from the norm. * Close up of dead butterfly with crawling ants, camera switches to close up of Lena. Connection between the character and the butterfly is made – both are beautiful creatures but neither are able to flourish in such an environment. Trapped. Also points to the unforgiving landscape they inhabit. This reflective moment is interrupted by another passing truck. * Young boy approaches. Smoking, spitting and truanting (all symbols of rebellion, or rather conformity in this place), we learn that he is Lena’s younger brother, Lee. * Another truck passes – her gaze follows, sense that Lena will not stay long in this place. She will get out before she too becomes like the butterfly. * Friend pregnant, Lena: “You’re never gonna get out of this shit hole Tye, you know that don’t’cha.” She is neither shocked nor sympathetic. Her use of profane language confirms her attitude toward this place. * Teen motion for Tye to join him outside the service station and she leaves. Lena does not follow – this is indicative of the choices the girls will make for their lives. * Lena passes a young mother on her way home. * Begins to rain – pathetic fallacy. Lena witnesses her brother being led away by the police. * The house: dilapidated and uncared for, reveals a family life of poverty and disadvantaged. * Enters house. Medium shot of mother at kitchen table, with long neck beer bottles
Ivan Sen (2002)
NOTES
* Opening credits: Images of rolling clouds, vast and immense, threatening and powerful. * Two female, high school students dressed in uniform walk a barren landscape. The only colour and movement comes from the trucks that roar through. Isolated, Aboriginal community. * Walk past an indigenous man carrying a jerry can of petrol. Stereotypical image of addiction. Lena in a thick Australian accent: “Whadda dickhead.” Clear from this dialogue that her values are very different from the norm. * Close up of dead butterfly with crawling ants, camera switches to close up of Lena. Connection between the character and the butterfly is made – both are beautiful creatures but neither are able to flourish in such an environment. Trapped. Also points to the unforgiving landscape they inhabit. This reflective moment is interrupted by another passing truck. * Young boy approaches. Smoking, spitting and truanting (all symbols of rebellion, or rather conformity in this place), we learn that he is Lena’s younger brother, Lee. * Another truck passes – her gaze follows, sense that Lena will not stay long in this place. She will get out before she too becomes like the butterfly. * Friend pregnant, Lena: “You’re never gonna get out of this shit hole Tye, you know that don’t’cha.” She is neither shocked nor sympathetic. Her use of profane language confirms her attitude toward this place. * Teen motion for Tye to join him outside the service station and she leaves. Lena does not follow – this is indicative of the choices the girls will make for their lives. * Lena passes a young mother on her way home. * Begins to rain – pathetic fallacy. Lena witnesses her brother being led away by the police. * The house: dilapidated and uncared for, reveals a family life of poverty and disadvantaged. * Enters house. Medium shot of mother at kitchen table, with long neck beer bottles