The Devil's Playground

One of my best friends at university had attended a Catholic brothers' seminary and like Fitz in "The Devil's Playground" had been dismissed from it due to his increasing interest in the opposite sex. Like Tom, he was confronted with letters sent to him from a girl he had met on a camp that the brothers had read and found disturbing. When my friend saw "The Devil's Playground" back in 1976, he commented that the film was realistic except for the fact that many of the lines spoken in the film would have remained in the minds of the brothers and the boys but never spoken.

The film itself is a masterpiece. The casting is perfection from that of the brothers down to the most minor characters. Watch for Danee Lindsay as Lynette. She has very few minutes on screen but her charm and warmth jumps off the screen at you. When she steals a kiss from Tom, she steals one from the audience. This is no sexually precocious 13 year old. This is a genuine 1950's Australian lass right down to her crooked front tooth that somehow adds to her appeal. How sad when Tom's innocently affectionate letters to her are used as evidence of something almost distasteful and to be discontinued lest Tom jeopardize his vocation. Tom Keneally as Father Marshall is equally effective. Again a small role that hits a home run. He is a cheerful and good man but this only makes his terrifying speech prior to the three day retreat even more disturbing. His depiction of hell, its terrors and its time span have remained with me – an atheist – throughout my life. If it remains with me, I can only guess at the effect it had on boys like those in the film.

The cinematography and the score add to the pervasiveness of the unease. There are very few shocks – just a sense of something being off kilter. Here is a struggle against an inexorable psychological enemy not some visible monster that jumps out of the shadows. Tom Allen, the young protagonist, struggles to remain positive about becoming a brother in the face of fanaticism, sadism, overly strict prohibitions and the onset of puberty with its embarrassments and confusion. When he finally runs away, there is a true sense of relief for him and for us as we have become involved in his struggle. What a wonderful performance by the young Simon Burke.

The struggles of all the brothers are presented in a balanced manner. Each of them is likably human and each, with the exception of Brother Francine, struggles with their belief in the rules and regulations they enforce. Even Brother Francine, as played by Arthur Dignam, plays a beautifully solemn piano piece which seems to reflect a sensitive side to an ostensibly repellent character. His fanaticism is indicative of his fear that any doubt might bring about a complete breakdown of his beliefs. And once he does doubt, the floodgates do open and all is lost.

Having taught teenagers for over 30 years, I have come to understand how much childhood stays with us throughout the rest of our lives. It makes me wonder whether Tom would ever be truly free from guilt. "Give me a boy until he is seven, and he is mine for life." What a terrible boast to make but an accurate observation of how enduring is childhood indoctrination.

Fred Schepisi's Australian drama from 1976 is a semi-autobiographical quite straightforward movie about the life and growing pains of both Fathers, Brothers and boys at a Roman Catholic boarding school, in 1953. Within Australia, it is considered amongst the top 50 films ever made there.

There are as many personal dilemmas and demons in the Brother's lives as there are in the boy's. Probably more. For someone who is not a Catholic, for me there's always the ever overpowering lecturing on sins of the flesh and such, particularly pertinent with pubescent boys, of course.

However, taking this aside and concentrating on the characters and the individual stories, these are solidly interesting and, thank goodness, the script is suitable for the 15 certificate, so there is no blushing at the natural use of grubby schoolboy banter.

There was also a slightly surprising amount of nudity, the strongest scene of which comes as a dream by one of the Brothers. The acting is uniformly very good, all natural, both boys and adults.

Radio Times said that The Devil's Playground 'takes us no further into the issue than a legion of others have before' and whilst I've far from seen them all, I'd have to agree.

Best bet buying the DVD is the Australian Cinema collection vol 1, a 12 film boxset and that is exactly where I got and saw my copy from.

There's one piece of inspired casting: Tom Kenneally (who looks like a jolly monk) as the visiting priest who looks like a jolly monk. Kenneally isn't an actor. (He's an Australian writer, best known overseas as the author of "Schindler's Ark", retitled "Schindler's List" in the US.) In fact, a non-actor suits the part well: like Kenneally, the priest arrives at the school performing his priest act competently but without polish. Like Kenneally, his native charm shines through, even when he's giving an appalling speech about Hell. You find yourself wondering: is he REALLY serious? And you have no way of telling.

That's all that's truly inspired about Schepisi's film. The story takes place at some kind of young-priests-to-be training college, only for a long time it looks as though there is no story at all: instead we get slice after slice of life, and it's a while before we can tell all the characters apart and work out which ones we're meant to be following. Telling a story in this way requires razor precision; every single scene must be inherently interesting AND perfectly crafted. No scene (with one possible exception) is. On the other hand, no scene really falls down, either. This is the kind of reasonably absorbing movie (after the initial boring bits) that's well worth the time it takes to watch - i.e., an hour and a half. (And it's even worth the time spent thinking about afterwards.) There's a difference between satisfaction and pleasure; a film like this is satisfying, and ... well, not UNpleasant. If only the title didn't promise something BIG.

This film was a subtle masterpiece. It is of the quality of a Scorsese or Kurosawa epic in its eschewing of easy answers to life's major existential questions. The acting, casting and cinematography were all flawless. The evolution of the characters was handled with sensitivity and aplomb. Visually, the film is alluring and its avoidance of easy stereotypes in a way that only enhances its appeal. Some of the sex scenes are potentially divisive yet these too are treated with an abiding humanity. The settings are exquisite and deeply important to the film's lofty philosophical and religious probing. A very sincere and important film that is funny, sad and visually appealing despite some dark subject matter.

Fred Schepisi's semi-autobiographical "memoir" of life in an Australian Catholic seminary for boys and young men supposedly takes place in the 50's but was shot in the 70's and looks it. The stylistic tropes of the film are as distinctive as Disco, but the portrayal of all of the people who inhabit the pastel tableaux is lifelike and sympathetic. Anyone who has listened to old 78's of the great voices of long ago has undergone a similar process of adjusting one's senses to the medium and finding the performer very much alive under the "static".

This movie was shown to a group of clinical psychologists and psychiatrists who are also serious students of film. Their reaction was unanimously favorable. There's no difficult symbolism here. It's all right there for us to see, enjoy, and understand.

I think that Schepisi has tried to present life in such an institution as it really is. Not being Catholic myself, I suppose it's easy for me to agree with the author's obvious criticism of the astonishingly prudish standards set for both students and faculty. Maybe I'm a little dim, but I'm still trying to figure out how these fellows could get their "bottoms" clean when they have to wear bathing trunks in the shower!!

I may also be showing my ignorance when I say that the emphasis on sex seems realistic. Maybe men and boys who have to refrain from every expression of sexuality don't find themselves just as focused on sex as people who can do as they please. Maybe. On the other hand, my experience with the male species is that we're a horny lot who are NOT the "masters of their domains".

As the old humorist Alexander King observed when he was asked what he thought of a new organization that wanted to put an end to the nudity of domestic pets (by dressing them in specially designed pants), "There are people who are so repressed that they see something obscene in the crotch of every tree."

In spite of the seemingly serious subject matter in the film, with much moral gnashing of teeth evident, there are many funny moments, which come across as gentle and true to life. Anyone hoping to see "Seminarians Gone Wild" is in for a disappointment. There's not a hint of burlesque to be found, and when one of the guys is doing something a little naughty we feel like saying "Hey Buddy, don't sweat it." One of the old brothers or priests takes that view, and his way of talking about it is delightful.

But if the movie showed only the hairy-palm issue it wouldn't be the ageless classic that it really is. This is a typically "British" (in this case Australian) movie about civilized men living in a closed society. The boys boarding school, the regiment housed in its Scottish garrison, the sailing ship on a long and terrible voyage, the class of schoolboys marooned on an uninhabited island--all have become settings for intense dramas that emphasize both the beauty and the pressures of highly developed codes of conduct. Take a look at TUNES OF GLORY, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, LORD OF THE FLIES, BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI.

Lastly, the great thing about films with really long "legs" is that everyday life keeps recycling issues, so when it comes time to study the "latest" disaster, we can look backward into the vaults to see what has already been created that might pertinent. The Church sex-scandals have definitely made this movie required viewing. The fact that it doesn't touch directly on the subject of pedophilic practices among some clergy will spur some discussion, as it did with the group to whom I showed it.