Australian
Screen

Beneath its quirky story of coming of age in rural Australia, The Year My Voice Broke is a savage portrait of a small town hypocrisy and sexual repression. The beauty of the hills around the town, where Freya and Danny have played together since childhood, is a kind of paradise, in marked contrast to the unhappy living rooms below, where adult problems play out in secret shame. Writer-director John Duigan continually emphasises high and low angles of view and constructs a sense of paradise lost, with a strongly emotional core. The film is an unusual mix – both romantic pastorale, a nostalgic memoir of growing up in the countryside, and a shocking denunciation of its values. The latter was not especially new, but the film’s delicate balance of dark and light tone, especially its use of laconic humour (the mid-year dance, and Trevor’s constant car thefts) made the film very popular with audiences. Geoff Burton’s cinematography is of immense value in establishing a strong sense of place. The film was followed three years later by a sequel, Flirting, in which Danny, played again by Noah Taylor, goes to boarding school.