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Clip description
Rick climbs out of the window of the cinema and runs through the swamp. Sitting on the bed with his two sisters, he distributes the candy he has stolen from the cinema. Two white children pass by and ask the Aboriginal kids if they want to play. The rough sound of Rick’s father startles them. The shadows and sounds coming from inside the house tell us something violent is happening. The two white children peer through the fence, witnesses to the brutality that is occurring within the confines of the house. Water runs down a drainpipe. It is red with blood. The two white children ride off.
Curator’s notes
The general theme of these scenes is the seen and the unseen, the moments of someone else’s despair that each of us involuntary witness to at one time or another. The witnessing of another’s pain in this instance, is a form of powerlessness experienced by both the children observing, and the children suffering behind closed doors. Moffatt’s use of suggestion dominates this narrative, and as a filmmaker, it is as though she is leaving plenty of gaps that we as an audience, are asked to fill on our own. As one would peruse Moffatt’s photographic work, we peruse this flim, returning to it again and again in order to glean something more from the story.
