'Journey’ can teach many lessons

Press, 28 April 1980, Page 12

' Journey’ can teach many lessons

There are some excellent films that can sneak in and out of Christchurch without most people ever knowing that they have been here, or what they have missed. ‘‘Journey Among Women” (Odeon) is one of them and is the kind of movie which probably would have received all kinds of accolades if for example it had been shown at tire Canterbury Film Festival. Arriving without any publicity and with a dubious name like ‘‘Journey Among Women” which sounds more like the title of some sex exploitation film, certainly does not help. However, this Australian, effort, filmed mainly with a dozen actresses during six weeks in the forests of- the Hawkesbury River, is a different kettle of fish — and an extraordinarily good one! at that. ’

Unusual and impressive, “Journey Among Women” is a complete breakaway from the styles and themes that have appeared in most Australian film-making; Although it is set in the late 18th Century, both the director (Tom Cowan) and the producer (John Weiley) stress that it is not an “historical” film.

t In Weiley’s words it “uses i the mirror of the past to foct us on the obsessions of to- ? day — the independence of , women, civilisation against nature, freedom against, res- ’ ponsibility.” s A little slow to start, the - film tells, with excitement 1

AT THE CINEMA

Hans Petrovic

and imagination, the story of 12 women —lO of them convicts, an Aboriginal girl' and an elegant young lady — who form a sisterhood in a savage’wilderness where they dare to create a world free of men.

The convict women, used and abused by soldiers guarding a Paramatta penal colony seize a chance to escape their dreadful conditions and disappear into the bush.

They take with them Elizabeth, the daughter of the.colony’s judge-advocat and fiancee of an army officer. In the wilds, they form an outlaw colony of their own. As in any society, the object

is survival. The women do survive, living in tribual conditions, painting their nude bodies in colours to blend with the bush, fighting, killing and loving. Even Elizabeth at first hated and jeered at by the others, learns to be a survivor and a member of the tribe. The women's eventual clash with man (soldiers, led by Elizabeth’s fiance) builds into a strange and savage war with no quarter given.

At times, the photography is somewhat grainy, dark or over exposed, but this only helps to accentuate the cruddy colonial atmosphere; and the journey through the bush, with its white gums, fems and oddly-shaped cliff faces, seems to recall a former Dream Time.

The girls spend qutie a bit of time bouncing around with bare breasts, but considering the circumstances. I would be very surprised if they did not — and this is certainly not meant as a cheap blue movie.

I assume that this is the kind of first-rate film that can be made on a moderate budget, with some intelligent directing and editing. Take note, New Zealand film makers, surely you have'all the necessary ingredients at hand.