The Year My Voice Broke - (1987)
Directed by John Duigan
Written by John Duigan
Starring Noah Taylor, Loene Carmen, Ben Mendelsohn
& Graeme Blundell
Like a society in miniature, the small country town in
The Year My Voice Broke has a shared history, with all it's inhabitants seeming to know each other, and their sometimes dubious pasts. On it's outskirts are the wide open spaces so common to many of these towns - and the colours of the film dominate - blue, gold and brown (note how the blues in the clothes and brownish gold of the skin match in the film's poster.) The feel, visual quality, sound and story all resonate with me, and as such this has become a very multi-faceted film that I'm strongly attracted to. The story is set in 1962, a little before my time, but there's a lot that is still recognizable to me, and a genuine feel for how the world appears to young Danny (Noah Taylor), who is passing through what is a seminal moment in his life - in love with his lifelong friend Freya Olson (Loene Carmen) while the music and movies of a new generation leave their influence. It's a very poetic film, with many beautiful moments that don't take anything away from the down-to-earth reality of it's characters, and life as it appeared at that moment. It's a moving film, with an astute sense of emotional complexity.
While working on a farm in the surrounding countryside Danny and Freya come into contact with Trevor Leishman (Ben Mendelsohn) whose masculinity immediately attracts Freya, much to Danny's dismay. He sticks close to the pair in an attempt to compete for Freya's love, but her physical attraction to Trevor is enough to win her over in spite of caring deeply for Danny, who is a year younger than she is. In the midst of this love triangle, the history of an abandoned house on the outskirts of the town becomes significant once Danny finds out who once lived there, who Freya's real mother was, and what she was like. In the meantime, Freya becomes pregnant and Trevor goes on the run after a robbery he commits, injuring a bystander. He may have wanted Freya to run away with him, but once he learns of her condition he decides that her safety is paramount - and events will eventually conspire to separate the three, leaving what they went through an enduring memory to Danny. One of those bittersweet remembrances of his youth.
This was one of those films that far exceeded my expectations going in, despite it winning 5 AFI Awards (the Australian equivalent of the Oscars) in 1987, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor for Ben Mendelsohn, Best Screenplay and the Members Prize. It has a visual quality that doesn't take anything away from it's story - occasionally rewarding people watching closely with very nice shots, such as one where a passing train reflects direct sunlight through it's windows as it passes by, and many expansive shots of the wide open countryside. It provides a lot of interest for being the start of two great actors' careers - both Noah Taylor and Mendelsohn would go on to be players on the International stage, and I certainly remember them being lauded in the late 80s. It has a soundtrack which accommodates quite a few classic 60s songs, but at the same time doesn't intrude with them, relying on a much more lilting, gentle number - 'The Lark Ascending' - which was first composed in 1921 by British nationalist composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, with other contributions from Christine Woodruff.
All of the characters feel very real. Mendelsohn's unusual laugh was a creation that was simply a derivation of his real laughter, which writer/director John Duigan asked him to greatly exaggerate. Noah Taylor and Loene Carmen began a close friendship which endures to this day. Playing Freya's adoptive stepfather, Nils, was an actor very well known in Australia, Graeme Blundell. An interesting dynamic is set up when it becomes apparent that Danny's father (Malcolm Robertson) at one time slept with Freya's birth mother around the time she got pregnant, which sets up a question that has no answer - could Freya be Danny's half-sister? Was Nils compelled to adopt Freya because
he thought he was Freya's real father? At one stage he utters a very untoward comment regarding remembering Freya's mother's face - "You never look at the mantlepiece when you're stoking the fire." Her birth mother is described as the "town bike" (ie - everybody gets a ride) which establishes how she was looked upon, and how Freya is looked upon when she falls pregnant. Small town cruelty at it's worst.
I credit John Duigan with not only the perfect and relatable screenplay, and inspired direction, but also the visuals that cinematographer Geoff Burton captured, with even the day-for-night scenes giving the film's atmosphere an ethereal quality. I love what I see in this film. The production seems to have been charmed, for the day after filming wrapped the rains came, transforming the landscape from brown and gold to green in what would have been a disaster. At various stages natural lightning occurred at perfect times and was caught on film at the right moments, and an invading swarm of moths were captured when Duigan saw them and rushed his camera crew out from where they'd retired for the night. Many of the songs you hear on the soundtrack went up in price ten-fold shortly after the film was released, which meant that if it had of been made any later these songs would have been out of the film's reach budget-wise. I'm grateful, because the end product was worth all of this fortune.
There are many scenes and ideas I particularly like, such as the idea of events soaking into the surrounding environment and leaving an invisible, indelible and permanent mark, voiced through Bruce Spence's Jonah. I like the way Trevor sticks up for Danny at school despite them being rivals for the same girl, and I think the scene where Trevor takes friendly frolicking way too far when he hold's Freya's head down under water, scaring nearly everybody - and the strange way Freya kind of accepts what he did, despite obviously causing her a lot of angst and perhaps even pain - is really striking. I love the way the characters are drawn towards the derelict house (another fortunate boon for the filmmakers - they found the perfect derelict house near the town of Braidwood, in New South Wales where they were filming, and dragged old farm equipment over to create the silhouettes you see) perhaps because of the history of the place, which they are mostly unconscious of. I love the soundscape Duigan and the sound crew created, mixing suggestive and haunting sounds with nature at night during the time they spend there.
When presented as a whole, all these aspects of
The Year My Voice Broke come together into a really excellent, fully fleshed-out, and immersive remembrance - and added to that is the personal way I look back to my youth - some of which was spent in an Australian country town. At times, and especially near the end, there are some shots which combine great acting and visual acuity in the expressions our characters have, and really highlights the intimate quality this film expresses itself with. Freya often hides herself away in the rocks of her 'special place', as if the landscape itself is embracing her, and there does seem to be a kind of magnetic pull these places have - while at the same time the townspeople as a group feel repulsive. There's a definite disconnect between the three young characters in this film and their families, so the camaraderie they feel together is especially strong - and this helps Danny and Freya be stoic in the face of overwhelming sadness, creating for Danny a memory that he treasures, and a formative one, despite any sorrow all of this inevitably came with. The great physical distances between towns, and the great distance the years put between us and our most vivid experiences, will heal us, but still leave one of those invisible, indelible, yet permanent marks.
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