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Clip description
In the outback, the father (John Meillon) reads his maps and geological tables as his daughter (Jenny Agutter) prepares a picnic. The small boy (Lucien John) plays with his toy soldiers and water pistol, shooting at a passing aeroplane. He is confused when real shots ring out: he thinks his father is playing a game. The young woman realises what is happening. She rescues her brother and leads him to safety as the father kills himself.
Curator’s notes
The children survive a plane crash in the book, but this new explanation of why they are in the outback is much more mysterious, threatening and violent. We have no inkling that the father is about to go mad, and no real explanation. Scenes before this in the city show him distracted and remote, probably worried about his work. The geology maps in the car suggest a connection with mining, although a Volkswagen Beetle is hardly the car a geologist would use to go to the outback. Still, logic is not really applicable at this point in the movie. We don’t know why the children are still in school uniforms either, except that it adds considerably to the visual incongruity once they start walking.
The sequence has incredible power and tension that gives way to shocking violence. Roeg extends that tension for a long time, using the soundtrack (Rod Stewart’s hit song ‘Gasoline Alley’, 1970) to give a sense of slightly strained normality. The cutting tells us things are not normal, by prolonging the wait for something to happen. There is also a series of harbingers – the boy with the pistol in his mouth, the ant being crushed, the pile of rocks that look like a desert cairn or grave, the aircraft flying overhead – all these can be taken as symbols of death approaching. The father’s words when he stops shooting become increasingly unhinged, but it’s a matter of tone. ‘We have got to go now’ becomes ‘I (pause) have got to go now’. These are signs perhaps of Edward Bond’s contribution to the film. The violence of this scene, and the repetitions in the dialogue, are typical of his work. It’s a masterful scene in which the whole fabric of these people’s lives is undone within the space of one pop song.
Lucien John, playing the small boy, is the director’s own son.
