Boys Clothing in Australian Films


Figure 1.--"Walkabout" is commonly thought to be one of the most famous Australian films, in part because of the importance of the "Outback" to the national psyche. Two of the children start out the film in emaculate school uniforms.

HBC has noted several Australian films of interest, but at this time can not recall the titles. Perhaps the most famous is Walkabout which shows a brother and sister in school uniforms. Another film is set at a state school in a rural area. It is a coming of age film set around a studious boy and a girl he has grown up with and the town delinquent. Many of the boys at his high school, including the boys picking on him wear short pants.

I Own the Race Course

1977 Comedy/Adventure: Andy, a slightly dull boy, becomes convinced he has purchased his local racecourse from a tramp who was sleeping there. Convinced otherwise by his friends he continues working there, eventually, uncovering a race fixing scam. Also starring: Anthony Minger as "Mike" & Safier Redsepaska as "Terry"An Australian reader suggested this film, but HBC has not seen it.

PS, Careful He Might Hear You - (Australia, 1983/84)

Touching little film about an orphaned boy. He plays the part of a younger boy subject to a custody battle by two aunts, one of modest circumstances and the other quite well off. His rich aunt, who wants to take care of him. He wears short pants including a short pants suit. The clothes he wore were typical of Australiam boys' clothdes in the 1930s. He goes to a new school where the school bully, interestingly a girl, picks on him. Nicholas Gledhill played a limited, but successful roles in the film, although the plot is built around his character.

Rabbit-Proof Fence (Australia, 2001)

This Australian film is based on a true story about three Aborignee girls taken away from their mothers and raised in a boarding school. Three of them simply decided to walk across Australia to get home. Two make it. It is a testimony to the strength of the human spirit. The name comes from a fence built accross Australia to limit the spread of rabbits. The girls use it to guide themselves home. An Australian reader has provided HBC a review of the film.

Top Mates

An Australian reader suggested this film, but HBC has not seen it.

Walk About - (Australia)

This may be the most famous of all Australian films. I know it was the first Australian film that I saw. It deals with a very young school boy in a nice uniform and his sister who are alone in the Outback. They are rescued by a aborigine boy who falls in love with her. Some discrete nude shots. Very good movie. The Outback is a central theme in Australian national mythology, rather like the Old West in America. Only the Old West is gone and the Outback is still there. It is no accident that many of the best known Australian films feature the Outback. The interesting thing is that Australian is one of the most heavily urbanized countries in the world. We do not yet have a review of this important Australian film. Hopefully one of our Australian readers will work one up.

(The) Year My Voice Broke - (Australia, 1988?)

A well done, wry coming of age film evoking the tortures and exquisite longings of adolescence. Danny (Noah Taylor) is the 15 year old hero is the embodiment of gridlock teen emotions. A scrawny kid with long, bony arms and a dramatic sweep of dark hair, would like to be like the rockers he hears on the radio. He moons after his childhood friend, a girl a year older than he. But she has a boy friend and in despair Danny follows them about. The movie is set in 1962, in ravishingly stark New South Wales. The movie delivers a challenging coming of age struggle. The moody, rather seedy small-town struggle, evokes an American southern Gothic novel.








HBC





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Created: January 30, 2000
Last updated: November 12, 2003