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Clip description
The three – Melanie (Alyssa McClelland), Elvis (Luke Carroll) and Perry (Jie Pittman) – are holed up in an old house. Perry and Elvis are playing cards and banter between themselves. Melanie is bound and gagged. Unable to stand it any longer, Perry undoes the ropes and removes the gag from Melanie’s mouth. The boys brag about being master criminals, and are insulted when Melanie tells them she thinks otherwise.
Curator’s notes
The underlying dynamic between all characters is one of youth, and the dream of another place, chronic themes of the young in isolated areas. The relationship between Perry and Elvis is one of culture, language and blood, but Melanie offers Perry something else – the chance to entertain the fantasy of ‘what if’. The violence of the situation that has thrown them all together eventually ends with a volatile break up; and perhaps here is the subtext of the film – the social relationship between an Indigenous male and a non-Indigenous female is contextualised first by violence, even though both are dreamers set adrift and alienated by society.
