Australian
Screen

Clip description

Constable Graham McGahan (Brendan Cowell) receives his first visit at the police caravan from Lucky Phil (Simon Laherty), who’s mildly retarded but has a great skill with numbers. McGahan kids him about the police knowing everything; Phil asks him if they know who killed the young woman Fiona – which takes the young constable by surprise. Later in the evening, McGahan tries to talk to a drunken man passing the caravan. Dean Stouritis (Luke Elliot) gets abusive and aggressive; McGahan responds in kind, taking out his immobilising spray. The local shopkeeper Lionel (George Prataris) intervenes to calm things down.

Curator’s notes

The second part of the scene amplifies the sense that there’s a lot the police don’t know. The drunk man was the partner of the local woman who was killed, and Constable McGahan doesn’t know that because he’s not part of this community and hasn’t been properly briefed. As in clip one, the cops are human and make mistakes. One of the ideas behind the characters is that everyone does, and police are no different. Matthew Saville’s script presents a series of characters who choose, on occasion, to do the wrong thing. Dean’s outburst is aggressive and could provoke a fight, but McGahan starts the trouble, partly because he’s bored and he feels like he’s not a real policeman – that is, one who has used his weapon. One of the film’s many surprises is that Dean and McGahan become friendly the next day and Dean helps the policeman to save Lucky Phil from a serious assault. The film gives us a series of confrontations which can and sometimes do escalate to violence: as in this scene, there is also the possibility that it can be avoided, at least sometimes. Again, the score by Bryony Marks adds tremendous tension and emotion.