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Harry (Barry Otto) leaves the city to find Honey Barbara (Helen Jones), the hippie beekeeper he fell in love with after his life fell apart. She is angry at his betrayal and wants nothing to do with him, so he embarks on a long-term plan to win her back, through her bees and the planting of hundreds of trees. The narrator is Harry as an old man, recounting the story to the daughter he had with Honey Barbara.
Curator’s notes
This story is very typical of Peter Carey’s picturesque and romantic style of narrative, and Ray Lawrence’s determination to capture its spirit on screen. The scene flows with a beautifully sustained rhythm; it’s both epic and comic, as well as romantic. The film is partly about storytelling, and this is its last great story. The last words of the story, after old Harry has been killed by one of the trees he planted, are – ‘He was Harry Joy. He was our father. He told stories and he planted trees’.
