Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Danny Embling (Noah Taylor) being tormented in the school toilets by bullies, who taunt him, saying that his love poetry has been found. Danny races into the playground to find another boy and girl sending up his poetry in front of an audience of other students. Danny is wrestled back to the girls’ toilets, where the bullies force his head into a toilet bowl and flush the toilet. An older boy, Trevor, (Ben Mendelsohn), enters, forcibly removes the bullies, takes them outside and slams their heads into a wall, to the enjoyment of onlookers. Freya (Loene Carmen) enters the toilets, where Danny is sitting dejectedly in a cubicle with the door closed, and asks if he is all right.

Educational value points

• The film The Year My Voice Broke has been applauded for its sensitivity to the heightened emotions of adolescence, particularly through its script, direction and acting. In this clip humiliation and bullying are portrayed as an integral part of school life, with Danny’s poetry being derided by a laughing crowd. The clip captures the intensity of adolescent emotion and vulnerability, especially if parts of the private self are revealed in public.

• The portrayal of apparently ideal places, periods or people as ugly or nightmarish is an important thematic component of the film and of Australian writer and director John Duigan’s oeuvre. Schooldays are often remembered or presented as 'the best days of one’s life’ and a time of carefree innocence prior to the challenges of adulthood, but Danny’s violent suffering reveals this as false. Rural life is often presented as being free of the hardships of the city but, while the surroundings may be idyllic, the trials for these young characters are severe.

• The clip demonstrates a contrast that is essential to the narrative and to the love triangle between Freya, Danny and Trevor. Danny is sensitive, vulnerable and a target for bullies, while Trevor is a hero yet borders on being a bully himself, dealing out rough justice to Danny’s attackers. In this clip the film cuts between Freya’s face and Trevor’s, suggesting their mutual attraction.

• Traditional Australian masculine values are critiqued in the clip. Sensitivity, creativity and artistic pursuits are seen to be derided, individual differences and talents are punished and conformity, physical strength, violence and aggression feature as successful strategies.

• The work of two of Australia’s talented male actors is showcased. Noah Taylor and Ben Mendelsohn have both achieved national and international success. While The Year My Voice Broke was only his second film, Taylor has now appeared in more than 35 productions, including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), the controversial biography of Adolf Hitler Max (2002) and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Mendelsohn has appeared in more than 34 productions, achieving fame for his roles in the Australian hits Spotswood (1992) and Mullet (2001).

• The Year My Voice Broke is one of John Duigan’s most widely known and loved films. It won Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards in 1987 for Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. Duigan’s films include Flirting (1991) the sequel to The Year My Voice Broke, and the Australian classic Dimboola (1979).

This clip starts approximately 23 minutes into the feature.

Danny is standing alone at a urinal. Another student appears in the doorway.
Boy Oh, here he is. The poet.
Danny What?
Boy (inaudible)’s found all that stuff you’ve been writing in your desk.

They both go outside to the playground. A boy is mockingly reading Danny’s poem out to a laughing crowd of students.
Boy 2 ‘We once were friends and still are now, but you think I’m too young to love. But I know…’
Danny Give us it back or I’ll belt ya!
Girl Oh, you’re so sensitive, Danny. ‘If only I could prove it to you, you would see – we could become two and be forever free.’
Boy OK, into the dunny!
Danny No!

All the students rush noisily into the toilets, Danny in a headlock.
Boy Are you a girl, Danny?
Danny Fuck off!
Boy Washing your hair are you, Danny?
Boy 2 Got a bit of soap down there, Danny?
Boy One, two, three, down!
All cheer as the boys flush Danny’s head down the toilet.
Boy Come on, get it down there! How’s it feeling?
Trevor comes pushing through the assembled students.
Trevor Bloody good odds, isn’t it, hey?
Boy 2 He’s thirsty, Trev. Come on.
Trevor Put him down.
Boy It was just a joke, Trev.
Boy 2 Yeah. Yeah, he’s alright. He was laughing.

Trevor drags the two perpetrators violently from the bathroom, amidst their protests.
Boy 2 Only muckin’ around anyway! He was laughing! No! No!
Trevor Heads or tails, fellas? Alright, heads it is!
He slams their heads into the side of the building, drawing a shy smile from Freya.
Trevor Sounded hollow, I reckon.

Freya goes into the toilets to check on Danny.
Freya Danny? You alright?