Céu Inacabado

Normally, I tend to avoid re-made films like the plague. I had no prior knowledge that 'Unfinished Sky' was a Australian re-make of a 1998 Dutch film entitled 'The Polish Bride',about two damaged souls being thrown together by chance. In this case, it's about a sheep farmer who finds a wounded Afghan woman on his property,who has escaped from a life most nasty (she was brought into the country as an illegal alien to work in the sex industry). Little by little, the lives of the two begin to come together,despite the fact that neither speak the others language. Despite this, they overcome the usual obstacles. The film does manage to gloss over some details about the woman (actually played by the same actress that played in the Dutch original),but does wear it's heart on it's sleeve,rather nicely. As this film has no U.S. distributor, it may be a bit of a find. Worth taking a look at (especially if you've seen the original version).

This is a story about pure evil and men at their worst, but also a man who muddles through to what is right.

The refugee woman Tahmeena speaks almost no English at the beginning of the movie. Some of her backstory is explained through pictures and some the viewer can only guess at until the end. But since she shows up at the farm obviously the victim of some violence, the viewer can surmise that either she is herself a vicious criminal, which seems unlikely, or she has suffered a great deal.

There isn't much dialogue for half the movie because of the language barrier. Some of the story is told by quiet action. I won't say the story drags, but it develops slowly.

There are many sequences where the viewer sees flashes of action and there are quite a few dark scenes.

Finally the climax begins with John doing the famous good deed that can't go unpunished. The events that take place in the present and flash back to the past really dive into the sewer of human depravity.

The ending is hopeful but open ended.

I'm a sucker for romance. No, I didn't give Legally Blonde a ten, but I'm pretty tragic: I watched Notting Hill three times.

That's what I thought I was getting this time. I was wrong.

I recorded this, and it was a few months until I got around to watching it.

It helps if you don't know that it's a remake: but by now, you do. Or of what... If you've seen the other movie, you can watch this one too: trust me, you have NOT seen it before! When I watched it, I didn't know it was a re-make; I didn't even know it was Australian. I take the point of the poster who said this is two stories compressed into the one movie: it is. He believes that's over-doing it. I respectfully disagree: in Australia, we often find the "one idea" Hollywood treatment of a story quite unsatisfying.

This movie had me in from the opening scenes. It's one of the few movies I wouldn't pause to take a phone call. That's my highest accolade, and this one earns it.

Notice the high ratings the Australian posters are giving it? That's not entirely because we like our own films. It's also because this has an authenticity that is utterly compelling, if you happen to speak Australian. If you do speak Australian, you will realise that the power of this story is in what is NOT said. Which tends to be the way rural Australians communicate! Outback Australia really is like this: particularly the north of the country.

This film demonstrates how fragile film aesthetics are. Quite possibly as a novel, which takes time to read and allows us to accommodate shifts in our emotions, it could be fine. But here we have, essentially two conflicting stories that are jammed onto one another with destructive results.

One story is a tough, indeed brutal, issues movie dealing with justice, male dominance and humanist sentiments, the other is a touching romance about two vulnerable people trying to heal each other from their emotional scars. Neither of these is very original and the one, in my view, emotionally precludes the other. When we are steamed up about injustice, we cannot access the very fine-tuned emotions associated with love.

One of the greatest things about the film medium is its ability to twist time and integrate the past into the present. But here, that is the film's undoing. If the story had been told chronologically, we would at least have been able to get the nastiness out of the way and empathise with the romance, but the threat and extremely crude depictions of the 'horrors of the brothel' keep bursting back in, destroying any subtle emotions that have been generated.

i thoroughly enjoyed this film. history would suggest Aussie made films aren't generally of the highest caliber - mad max(mad max 1 that is) aside. But as an Aussie myself i will allow myself to be critical of Aussie movies. so to watch this film was a delight. this film had a great back drop - rural Australia - and didn't under or overplay that aspect of the film. Was a lot of money spent making this movie - no - but that would be true to the film - a gritty and very good Australian film. The film also contains a little something for most, with an element of romance and suspense thrown into this drama. The plot tag also suggests she flees a brothel which sounds very cliché but isn't accurate in relation to where she is fleeing from at the beginning of the film. Give it a try - great film.