JOURNEY TO THE END OF NIGHT

Australia, 1982, 74 minutes, Colour.
Bill Neave, Connie Neave, Bill Neave Jr.
Directed by Peter Tammer.

Journey To The End Of Night is a personal documentary by Peter Tammer who won awards for his short feature, Mallacoota Stampede, 1981.

This film was three years in the making. It is a portrait of war veteran Bill Neave, his memories of New Britain 1942, and his escape. The film is principally a soliloquy by Neave, skilfully edited and finally dramatised in a night sequence of grief and Neave's asking forgiveness. There is a naturalness about Neave and his great ability for storytelling and creating atmosphere. There is artificiality in the contrivance of his story. However, the impact is something of psycho-drama or autobiographical role-play as a mangoes deeply into his memories, communicates with the important people in his life (the ghosts of his life) and experiences once more the strengths and failings of an important period. Neave is an ordinary Australian, with great strength of character as seen in his experiences in New Britain, but with a great number of personal prejudices. This is easy to see in hindsight and questions are raised about his attitude towards the natives of New Britain, towards the Japanese, and especially in terms of killing during war. There is a freshness and vigour about Neave's self-confessing as well as a depth of humanity and grief.

Neave was involved in a crucial experience of Australian soldiers during World War Two, one that is well remembered. Documentary background of this period is provided in Andrew Pike's documentary Angels of War.

1. The impact of the film and its quality, portrait of a man, documentary? Drama?

2. The soliloquy and its focus on Bill Neave? The limitations of the soliloquy method, yet Neave breaking through his confinement to involve his Listeners in his own experience and the story of New Britain? The director's use of rooms, movement within the house? Neave's wife Connie and the children? Interspersing the soliloquy with brief sequences of work around the house? The build-up to the final night sequence? Audiences knowing that it was dramatised and contrived - yet its authenticity? The importance of close-ups, tracking shots? Editing and pace? The skill in piecing together the elements of the soliloquy?

3. The significance of the title - images and metaphors, darkness and light, journeys? Neave's journey in 1942 in New Britain? His journey in subsequent years and decades? Dawn at the end of night - hope? Bill Neave's night from 1942 to 1980? The final sequence at night with the need for waking and rising?

4. The insertion of quotations from Celine and the Book of Job? Celine and the reflections on memory, communication, the heart, ugliness from the heart and ugliness in the face, the need to remember and to forget, to speak out one story? The laughter and mockery of listeners? The healing? The Book of Job and the emphases on suffering, victims, expressing sorrow and grief, terror? Stories told as a purging? The place of insertion of these quotations?

5. Bill Neave weeping at the opening of the film? His speaking and weeping throughout? The singing of 'Danny Boy'? His final sobbing in the night? Tears and deep memories, grief, pain, guilt, hope?

6. The introductory information and Neave's establishing of the setting in New Britain: the number of Australian soldiers killed, the group who surrendered and were torpedoed in the Montevideo Maru, the few who escaped? Major Scanlen and his authority, the emphasis on each man surrendering - and Scanlen escaping with the others? Japanese occupation and treatment of Australians? New Britain and its jungles and mountains? The occupation of Rabaul? The inaccessible mountains - terrain, climate? The rugged and long journey? The New Britain natives and Pidgin English? The missionary in the mountains? The missionary on the coast? How well did the film establish the picture, the situation, the facts, the experience?

7. The desperate nature of the situation? Orders? The drive to escape? Illness and exhaustion? Suffering and the goal of freedom? The goal and its importance, the mans used to achieve the goal of freedom?

8. Bill and his personality - as seen in the film and his reminiscences? His establishing the story of his life - Australian background, Victoria, the call-up, his friends, training? The important sequence of his anger and resentment against the friend who returned and didn't communicate the fact that he was alive? The intensity and stubbornness - not forgiving of forgetting? His attitude towards military authority and orders? The Japs and his resentment, his hatred and inability to trust the Japanese? The importance of the story of his killing the Japanese soldier, his rage and madness? His blaming himself, excusing himself - and yet the final tears in the night? His ability to speak Pidgin English, his attitude towards the natives - both gratitude and superiority? The killing of the New Britain native who was in danger of betraying them? Presuppositions about war, rights, race, violence? Australian attitudes?

9. Bill Neave's deeper attitudes, reactions? How consistent were his feelings with what he spoke? His concerns?

10. The physical journey - encountering Scanlen, the mate waiting for his friend to die, the hills and the mountains, the heat and the sweat, the stink, the food - the tins ruined to save them falling into Japanese hands etc.? The weeks passing, the mountaintops, the sea? Illness, morale, death?

11. The importance of friendship and mateship, support? Mateship sustaining men in such an experience? The vividness of George's presence as Bill spoke to him? The bond of their friendship? The experience of George's illness and death? Dave and the importance of killing the New Britain native? His relationship with the natives and speaking Pidgin? The encounter with the priest and his calling him 'Father' and the warmth of his conversation with him? Bonds, sharing, memories? 'Danny Boy? The tribute to George, his compassion for Dave? The tribute to Father?

12. The missionary and his help of the troops, keeping up morale, supplying food and medicine? Friendship? The respect for the missionary - and the comment about swearing and bad language? The decision about the killing of the native?

13. The importance of killing in war - Bill's recollections of the Japanese soldier, the finding of the pen, his going berserk and brutally killing the soldier? Court martial, punishment - lenient in the situation? His vindicating George's death? The madness of war and its being able to be justified - but the deep memories and guilt? The lack of similar feeling in the killing of the native - the build-up with the drawing of the straws etc.?

14. The importance of the final escape - to what? Post-war life in Australia and the subsequent decades of Bill's life?

15. The style of the soliloquy - the yarn, the colloquial language, swearing, vivid recounting of events, creation of feeling? The pauses for the reply of the listeners? The chronological development of the soliloquy? The background of autobiographical role-play and psycho-drama and its healing effect?

16. The need for healing of memories, the scars and traumas of experience in memory, changing attitudes, the past enriching the present?

17. Bill's subsequent life, the surface respectability and ordinariness and yet the night and the nightmares, the w6.eping and the atmosphere of despair? The plea for forgiveness - how much atonement needed? How much repentance? The possibility of forgetting?

18. Bill Neave symbolising Australia and the memory of World War Two, attitude