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Clip description
Len (Bryan Brown) has come down to Sydney on the train, from Newcastle. In the cafeteria at Central Station, he asks Barbara (Kris McQuade) if she wants him back.
Curator’s notes
Much of the film is about people struggling to find the right words. Len uses letters to express himself; in person, he resorts too quickly to anger. All three of these clips show him struggling to control his anger – which is from a variety of causes: his domineering mother, unhappy memories of his father, a job he hates, an inability to say what he feels, a sense of inadequacy about his marriage and his violence. Barbara has a similar lack of articulacy, communicated by the way she says 'yeah’ to everything he says, when she often means no. The scene is beautifully played, with sensitive camera work.
