Sunday Too Far Away

Here's a film that feels like it doesn't have a single false note. From the famous opening scene when the hero falls asleep at the wheel and the car rolls over, to his laugh at the end when he realises he's been beaten, this film says just about everything there is to say about shearing - the job that is the main focus here. Now, a film about shearers in the Australian outback may not be everyone's idea of pleasant viewing, but it is much more than that: the shearer's work starts to resemble any job that slowly eats away at the life of the person doing it, even if that person still feels pride in his work. Great moments of humour - e.g. characters like tim and the cocky, pathos (old Garth, and mystery, like the girl interested to watch the shearers, or the cook with a drinking habit and violent streak. The song the films starts and ends with is great too, with suitably melancholic lyrics:

The roads I didn't take I bid them all so long While Sunday warms my blood and cools my mind And the dreams I thought were true Are now moss beneath my footprints

One of the few Australian movies that shows the outback and the men who worked there as they really were, without trying to romanticise and play down the brutality of the place and time. Great performance by Jack Thompson as the ageing gun shearer.

This movie would definitely make my personal top ten. Along with "The Odd Angry Shot", "The Club", and "Newsfront" this is one of the highlights of that golden age of Aussie movies made in the mid 70s to the mid 80's.

Jack Thompson is magnificent as the chief shearer (I think the technical term is "Ringer") of an itinerant gang of shearers who arrive at sheep station to work. The wonderful photography captures the heat and dust of the landscape as well as the harsh living and working conditions.

The main dramatic event in the movie centres around a strike by the shearers and the owners attempts to break it using scab labour. In this aspect it gives a nod to the political agenda portrayed in "Newsfront". There are some great character roles by minor players, the sub plot involving the awful cook is a little gem. Which pretty much sums up the film, not a major epic or Hollywood rubbish, just a good honest well made movie that bears repeated viewing.

A delightful Australian film produced in the 1970's that captures the true essence of the Australian character and Australian bush in the 1950's. This is an unashamedly "male" film that results in the cry "Ducks on the Pond" when female's venture into their domain.

Sunday Too Far Away is almost a documentary of one 1955 shearing run in outback South Australia. Minor events like the coming and going of the first Chef become immensely interesting when viewed through the lives of these characters.

If you are interested in Australian film, this one is not to be missed.

There's a slow moving shot halfway through SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY taken from inside the shearing shed looking through a window out into the yard. The camera pans across the yard before pulling back into the shearing shed, rising as it continues panning across the shed interior, following the action before settling on a particular character. It's a beautiful shot and a lovely example of the stunning cinematography that gives the film a palpability in which you can really feel the heat, dust and flies.

I watched the film for the first time this evening and was blown away by its lyricism, claustrophobia and grandeur. I grew up on a dairy and sheep farm in 1970s Northern Victoria when the kind of hard working, hard talking, hard drinking labourers who travel where the work is was still very much a cultural tradition in country Australia. The people in this film display an authenticity, brashness, sense of humour, bravado, timidity and mateship that is readily recognisable. It all feels genuine. It's no wonder the film was so readily embraced by Australians on its initial release.

Aspects of the film also reminded me of Tim Burstall's 1979 film, LAST OF THE KNUCKLEMEN in its exploration of class in a tough homosocial workplace culture. There's also a humorous bum-wiggling scene that reminded me of a shot from another Jack Thompson film, THE SUM OF US (Burton 1994) in which he is vigorously stirring a saucepan over a stove. I would not be surprised to learn that the shot in THE SUM OF US is a homage to SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY.