Clip description
After he is placed on a charge, Dale (David Field) refuses to recognise the prison’s authority. He takes off his clothes, declaring he is no longer a part of this world. In his cell, Dale begins to sing as if deranged, unsettling both guards and prisoners. He begins to incite other prisoners to ‘resign’ as well. Prisoner Barrett (Jim Daly) responds enthusiastically. Prison officer Berriman (Bill Hunter) sends Gaunt (Simon Woodward) into Barrett’s cell to give him yet another savage beating. Dale continues to challenge the other prisoners to join him. Prisoner Bryant (Phil Motherwell) is not sure what to do. The order within the division is changing.
Curator’s notes
This is a good example of David Field’s brilliant performance, and of the script’s use of repetition and inversion. Prisoners are made to strip their uniforms regularly for searches that are meant to humiliate them, so when Dale strips off his uniform and refuses to put it back on, he is using the oppressors’ own tactics against them. Field’s pacing back and forth in his cell gives a great sense of how excited he feels, having discovered a way to preserve a sense of self. He can’t stop the physical punishment, but he has declared that his mind is elsewhere, and untouchable. Placing that idea among the other prisoners begins a rebellion that finally leads to the shutting down of the unit.
The film makes great use of a simple but eloquent score, written by Paul Kelly and Shane O’Mara. Most of it is instrumental, rather than vocal, and it lends a sense of distance and irony to scenes that are otherwise hard to endure. It gives a sense of another place, a life outside the body, where Dale finds his refuge.
Although the names have been changed, most of the characters are based on real people. Some of those people went on to commit major crimes on release, so this is not simply a film about the brutalisation of one prisoner. The argument is pretty clear: brutal prisons do not make men less brutal, but more so, leading to ever more brutal crimes. The film does not show the riots that occurred in H Division before it was closed. It concentrates instead on the states of mind, of both prisoners and guards. There is a sense that both are victims. In terms of Australian films about prison, this is one of the most honest and unsettling.