Matt Shea
RubySoho
Morgan Bell
Cibbuano
David O'Connell
Mountain Fog
Break of Day
February 1st 2010 06:31
by Matt Shea
Given the raft of locally-made period dramas that seemed to flood Australian distribution chains in the late 70s and early 80s, it’s little wonder that among all the classics – Picnic at Hanging rock, Sunday Too Far Away, The Getting of Wisdom – there are a few that have almost been forgotten.
Break of Day is such a film. Handsomely mounted upon Russell Boyd’s cinematography and featuring the kind of exacting production design that Australian filmmakers of the time became renowned for, it deserves to be better known than it is.
Not that it’s necessarily a brilliant feature. When considering the strengths and weaknesses of Break of Day, the film almost dies the death of a thousand cuts – small imperfections that would be forgivable in isolation, but when combined together render the production nothing more than a worthy experience.
The problems start with its central players. A young Andrew McFarlane makes for a handsome presence as a troubled and slightly crippled Gallipoli veteran struggling post-war to fit back into small town Australian life with his pregnant wife (Ingrid Mason), but for a large part of the film he lacks both charisma and range. It’s a problem that manifests itself once his character, Tom, falls into an illicit relationship with a travelling artist, Alice (Sara Kestelman), who is renting a small cottage on the outskirts of town. When the audience should be getting down and dirty with the travails of forbidden love, Tom’s lack of shade makes him a fairly unsympathetic and disinteresting character.
Kestelman fairs a little better, seemingly having a greater handle on her character, but the lack of chemistry between her and McFarlane further damages the audience’s interest in their deepening dalliance. When the filmmakers seem to think we should be getting most excited, we’d probably be better off mowing the lawns.
Of course, it would be unfair to lay all the dramatic blame at the feet of Break of Day’s performers. Ultimately, they are only working with the screenplay handed to them, and while Cliff Green’s effort is full of many deft touches it fails when it comes to ramping up the romantic drama. There’s very little emotional jeopardy at the heart of the film, which is strange given the obstacles standing in the way of a true relationship between Tom and Alice.
Compounding the problem is Ken Hannam’s paceless direction. It’s great to have a film that percolates slowly, but at a certain point you wish he’d prodded his actors with something electric to help them surmount the script and chemistry problems they were dealing with.
What Break of Day does much better, however, is deal in some potent – and for the time slightly revisionist – subtext. The film has plenty to say about the legend of Gallipoli and the men who fought there. Tom’s description of the ANZACs burning down the brothels in Cairo is perhaps the best scene in the film, and illustrates Green and Hannam’s desire to forge their main character through the darker aspects of war. Tom’s alienation and inability to slip back into normal life is also keenly handled by both writer and director, a tact that once again sheds light on the darker corners of the Gallipoli legend. It’s solid subtextual stuff, even if a late (and logical) piece of character development takes some of the edge off this strong work.
Still, it’s in this realm that Break of Day is most successful: working to create a mood rather than build a solid work of character. Its strong subtextual elements gel nicely with the precise period design, and many of the supporting players are excellent, particularly Tony Barry as a fellow vet and John Bell as a truth-telling friend of Alice’s. It’s a film that’s often as flat-minded as the gossip-strewn town around which it’s set, but Break of Day still has plenty of deeper elements that should be recommended and is worth digging up for any die-hard fan of Australian late-70s costume dramas.
I say: An often uninvolving but nevertheless intriguing film that’s been lost in the shuffle of 1970s costume dramas.
See it for: H.G. Nelson in a virtually speechless part, wheezing away as the former victim of a mustard gas attack.
'Break of Day' is now available on DVD from Umbrella Entertainment
Given the raft of locally-made period dramas that seemed to flood Australian distribution chains in the late 70s and early 80s, it’s little wonder that among all the classics – Picnic at Hanging rock, Sunday Too Far Away, The Getting of Wisdom – there are a few that have almost been forgotten.
Break of Day is such a film. Handsomely mounted upon Russell Boyd’s cinematography and featuring the kind of exacting production design that Australian filmmakers of the time became renowned for, it deserves to be better known than it is.
Not that it’s necessarily a brilliant feature. When considering the strengths and weaknesses of Break of Day, the film almost dies the death of a thousand cuts – small imperfections that would be forgivable in isolation, but when combined together render the production nothing more than a worthy experience.
The problems start with its central players. A young Andrew McFarlane makes for a handsome presence as a troubled and slightly crippled Gallipoli veteran struggling post-war to fit back into small town Australian life with his pregnant wife (Ingrid Mason), but for a large part of the film he lacks both charisma and range. It’s a problem that manifests itself once his character, Tom, falls into an illicit relationship with a travelling artist, Alice (Sara Kestelman), who is renting a small cottage on the outskirts of town. When the audience should be getting down and dirty with the travails of forbidden love, Tom’s lack of shade makes him a fairly unsympathetic and disinteresting character.
Kestelman fairs a little better, seemingly having a greater handle on her character, but the lack of chemistry between her and McFarlane further damages the audience’s interest in their deepening dalliance. When the filmmakers seem to think we should be getting most excited, we’d probably be better off mowing the lawns.
Of course, it would be unfair to lay all the dramatic blame at the feet of Break of Day’s performers. Ultimately, they are only working with the screenplay handed to them, and while Cliff Green’s effort is full of many deft touches it fails when it comes to ramping up the romantic drama. There’s very little emotional jeopardy at the heart of the film, which is strange given the obstacles standing in the way of a true relationship between Tom and Alice.
Compounding the problem is Ken Hannam’s paceless direction. It’s great to have a film that percolates slowly, but at a certain point you wish he’d prodded his actors with something electric to help them surmount the script and chemistry problems they were dealing with.
What Break of Day does much better, however, is deal in some potent – and for the time slightly revisionist – subtext. The film has plenty to say about the legend of Gallipoli and the men who fought there. Tom’s description of the ANZACs burning down the brothels in Cairo is perhaps the best scene in the film, and illustrates Green and Hannam’s desire to forge their main character through the darker aspects of war. Tom’s alienation and inability to slip back into normal life is also keenly handled by both writer and director, a tact that once again sheds light on the darker corners of the Gallipoli legend. It’s solid subtextual stuff, even if a late (and logical) piece of character development takes some of the edge off this strong work.
Still, it’s in this realm that Break of Day is most successful: working to create a mood rather than build a solid work of character. Its strong subtextual elements gel nicely with the precise period design, and many of the supporting players are excellent, particularly Tony Barry as a fellow vet and John Bell as a truth-telling friend of Alice’s. It’s a film that’s often as flat-minded as the gossip-strewn town around which it’s set, but Break of Day still has plenty of deeper elements that should be recommended and is worth digging up for any die-hard fan of Australian late-70s costume dramas.
I say: An often uninvolving but nevertheless intriguing film that’s been lost in the shuffle of 1970s costume dramas.
See it for: H.G. Nelson in a virtually speechless part, wheezing away as the former victim of a mustard gas attack.
'Break of Day' is now available on DVD from Umbrella Entertainment
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Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
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