Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The Forerunner (1957)

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clip Living and working on the Snowy education content clip 1

This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

A woman emerges from one of the Snowy Mountain huts to fetch some firewood. Her two children, rugged up against the cold, leave the hut and ski down the hill past the other huts in the camp.

Down at the construction site, workers in the falling snow continue to build one of the 16 major dams included in the Snowy Mountains scheme. Meanwhile underground, an explosion clears a hold in the rock and tunnellers walk down the tunnel to continue digging. A curious frog, settled on one of the rocks, watches the workers walk past whistling as they go.

Curator’s notes

The tunnellers who appear in silhouette whistle the melody from ‘Tunnel thro’ the mountains’, a song sung by the workers in a later scene back in their huts after they have finished work for the day (see clip three).