Australian
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an NFSA website

Sadness (1999)

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Travelling north

Original classification rating: PG. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

William Yang travels north to Queensland where he grew up.

Curator’s notes

This is the beginning of Yang’s own odyssey to rediscover his Chinese family background. The filmmakers take him out of the studio and film him leaving the city in his old Toyota ’Shirl’. This sequence has a complete change of mood in visuals and sound, compared to clip one. Yang is filmed in studio behind the wheel of his old car with back projection as he leaves the city.

Accompanying the visuals as Yang drives north is a new upbeat soundtrack which, when combined with the narration and the visuals, has a light-hearted touch. The filmmakers have taken the photographer out of his performance mode and set him on a filmic journey. This then cuts back to portraits as Yang introduces us to his family and we start to learn more about the photographer himself.