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Clip description
Kev (Hugo Weaving) is enjoying a beer by the river at sunset. He’s just had to leave behind items he wanted to purchase at a roadhouse because he didn’t have enough money. When his son Chook (Tom Russell) joins him the kid shows that he stole some sparklers from the shop. Kev smiles, they light the sparklers and play on a skateboard ramp as the sun goes down before settling down for the night in the car.
Curator’s notes
A beautiful scene with very little dialogue that shows father and son bonding exuberantly in a memorably unique way. Weaving is a jailbird and we’ve earlier got a sense from Kev’s awkwardness in talking to his son at times that they haven’t spent much time together.
Captured in silhouette in the day’s fading embers, the scene illustrates filmmaker Glendyn Ivin’s keenly poetic visual sense (aided by Greig Fraser’s ravishing cinematography) and his willingness to let the images do the talking where possible.
The gentle, Middle Eastern-inflected music score for this scene, by acclaimed oud (Arabic lute) player Joseph Tawadros, picks up a theme and mood established in an earlier scene where father and son broke into a small town’s Afghan Heritage Museum to stay the night.
