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Clip description
Angry at Tahmeena for pointing a gun at him (in the previous scene), John (William McInnes) drives her towards town with the apparent intention of handing her over to the police. Tahmeena (Monic Hendrickx) becomes scared and hides inside the car when she recognises an approaching vehicle. The driver is local landlord Bob Potter (Bille Brown). He stops and asks John if he’s seen a young woman who has run away from his pub after getting into unspecified trouble with a customer. John denies having seen her. After Potter drives off John realises how terrified she is. When she starts to speak for the first time – in Dari (a form of Persian widely spoken in Afghanistan) – it dawns on him that she’s a foreigner. He’s angry but her anguished pleading affects him and he drives back to the farm, annoyed at himself for giving in.
Curator’s notes
There’s a lot going on in this tense, suspenseful scene, which displays a key reversal in the complex and rapidly evolving relationship between John and Tahmeena. It starts out with John apparently intending to wash his hands of her. He’s furious with her for holding him at gunpoint. But given the chance to betray her to a man who is looking for her, he decides to lie and keep her presence secret.
It’s the first of two closely related turning points. The second comes when he notices how terrified she is by the close shave with Potter, and her desperation not to be turned over to the police. At the same time he realises for the first time that she’s in all likelihood an illegal immigrant or refugee. Two conflicting impulses – to turn her in or to hide and protect her – do brief battle before his more humane instincts win out.
The scene offers an example of strong dramatic screenwriting. It features taut suspense (will Potter discover her hiding in the car, and will Woldring help to protect her?) and vigorous conflict between the two lead characters, who both seem equally set on opposing paths. It depicts a high degree of internal conflict within Woldring, aided by admirably economical dialogue. Woldring’s simple phrase, 'Christ, here we f***ing go’, when she starts showing her locket says much about his mistrust of foreigners without being literal about it.
