Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Raimond (Kodi Smit-McPhee) finding his mother Christina (Franka Potente) unconscious after taking an overdose of pills. As his father Romulus (Eric Bana) runs to get help from a local farmer, Raimond shakes Christina and tells her a story to try to wake her. When Christina is rushed to hospital Raimond is left alone at home where he runs around and around the outside of the house. The final scene conveys Raimond’s isolation through a series of shots that move above him and away from him as he sits on the roof at sunset.

Educational value points

• The clip, taken from the film adaptation of Raimond Gaita’s memoir Romulus, My Father, is set on a dilapidated rural property and shot using a mellow colour palette and warm lighting that suggest the possibility of a peaceful rustic life. However, the traumatic action in the clip reveals that the emotional terrain inhabited by the Gaita family is disturbed and fractured and the emptiness of the landscape is emblematic of the isolation felt by this migrant family.

• Significant plot development and characterisation are revealed through the cinematography and spare dialogue. Raimond’s isolation and uncertainty, Romulus’s desperate love for Christina and the family’s precarious fate are conveyed visually rather than through dialogue – particularly in the scenes in which Raimond races around the house and then sits on the roof and Romulus desperately runs for help.

• The use of a hand-held camera when Romulus discovers Christina’s unconscious state infuses the scene with intimacy and urgency. In using this technique the camera moves like a character, creating a subjective viewpoint. Powerful or strange events are typically shot with rapid or rough camera movements. Here the camera moves rapidly about the action to draw the viewer into the scene and to give a sense of chaos and of Romulus’s panic.

• The tracking shot (a shot that moves with the subject) of Romulus running to get help for Christina together with the sound of his heavy footsteps heightens the tension in the scene. The camera, closely tracking Romulus’s legs and feet in close up as he runs along the driveway, and the dominant sound effect of his feet hitting the ground create a visceral sense of the peril Christina is in and Romulus’s desperate attempt to save her.

• Throughout, Raimond’s narrative is presented from an omniscient viewpoint, lending it a reflective quality. Although he is the focus of the scenes, Raimond is shown from noticeably different camera angles: from above when he is with Mutti; from a low angle as he runs in desperation; and circling around him from above as he sits waiting on the roof. This camerawork presents Raimond’s distress and aloneness from the point of view of an observer.

• The layering of the story Raimond tells Mutti in voice-over as Romulus runs for help creates an experience of simultaneous time, contributing to the sense of urgency in the clip. Simultaneous time refers to actions that are occurring in different places being depicted as happening in the same moment, usually achieved by inserting cutaways (shots of integrated secondary activities) into the main action. Here, the drama is further intensified by the addition of the voice-over.

• The actors’ portrayals of the troubled, inarticulate Gaita family owe much to the direction of actor, stage director and first-time feature film director Richard Roxburgh (1962–). Romulus, My Father won the 2007 AFI Award for Best Film, Kodi Smit-McPhee won the AFI Young Actor Award and Eric Bana the award for Best Lead Actor.

A small boy goes into his mother’s room to try to rouse her.
Raimond Mutti?

A man fixes a fence outside. The boy is heard screaming.
Raimond Papi! Papi!

The man races inside.
Romulus Samantha. Samantha. Ah!
Raimond What’s wrong with her?
He picks up the pill bottle next to her bed.
Romulus How many you take? How many you take? How many? How many you take? OK. Stay with your mother. Talk to her. Don’t let her go to sleep, OK?
Raimond Where are you going?
Romulus Talk to her. Don’t let sleep, OK? Keep talk!

He runs from the room. The boy is left to talk to his mother while his father runs to get help.
Raimond Mutti. Um, once upon a time, time … a long time ago – wake up! There was a tree. It had leaves, and they were all new and green. It had silver branches, and a bird would come every day and sing in the tree. It would sing and sing and sing. It was a bloody good singer, this bird, but it was only small and brown. And … and then this woman, this beautiful woman, used to come and … and listen to it. And, and … um … and they were very happy. And that’s the end of the story. Mutti, are you awake? Open your eyes! Mutti! Mutti! Come on. Come on! Wake up!

The father returns with another man and scoops up the mother, taking her from the room and into a car.
Raimond Papi. What do I do?
Romulus Stay here, Raimond.

Raimond runs outside and sits on the roof of the house.