MDumont

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.

This film is not a as good as Imamura's "The Eel", but is hauntingly memorable. The plot leaves a bit to be desired ,but the characters and the situations are engaging and intriguing. Like "The Eel" the film is populated by people outside of mainstream society, misfits and "losers", but all the more endearing for it. The film is full of memorable vignettes, the fishermen by the river, the couple who run the guest-house, the family run fishing business and the African runner. All of these characters and situations have hand in the transformation of the central character's transformation from unhappy salaryman, trapped by mainstream society, to an outsider with a new found freedom. This and "The Eel" have similar qualities to the films of Julio Medem. A sort of Japanese magical realism.