Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Tom White (2004)

play
clip Tom loses his way

Original classification rating: M. This clip chosen to be G

Clip description

After attacking one of his colleagues with a set of rolled-up plans, Tom White (Colin Friels) crosses the water on a ferry. In a pub, he sits down for a drink, but he’s enveloped by silence. He drips water, or sweat, on his hands, then realises that everyone is staring at him. He leaves the pub.

Curator’s notes

The camera, as much as the actor, suggests the encroaching darkness in Tom White’s mind in this sequence. We don’t know why he goes to the industrial wasteland, except that it fits his state of mind. The ferry, a rather obvious metaphor for death, is also a means of escape – but it’s clear once he gets to the other side that escape won’t be that easy. Note the way his face is lit in the pub – the fluorescent light of the fridge makes his face pallid, an overhead accentuates his nose, which is red, like an alcoholic’s. He looks awful and the lighting makes him look worse.