CALL ME MUM
Australia, 2006, 76 minutes, Colour.
Catherine Mc Clements, Vicki Saylor, Lynette Curran, Dayne Christian, Ross Thompson.
Directed by Margot Nash.
Call Me Mum is a brief film made for television. It is very much a filmed play, focusing on five different characters, with only three settings. Catherine Mc Clements plays Kate, the foster mother of Aboriginal young man, Warren, played by Dayne Christian. They are on a plane from Sydney to Brisbane and their monologues to camera are from the plane. Meanwhile, Flo (Vicki Saylor), Warren’s birth mother, is in hospital and speaks from her hospital bed. Kate’s parents, Dellmay (Lynette Curran) and Keith (Ross Thompson) are in their Brisbane home awaiting the return of their daughter who left home long since to become a nurse and to become involved in a lesbian relationship.
The film has a great deal to say about Australia, especially about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders – the mother and son originally coming from Thursday Island. There are reflections on the Stolen Generation, on the fostering of Aboriginal children, on social workers and their concern as well as their delaying in doing paperwork for adoptions. Kate is a rather embittered woman, exasperated by the thirteen years she has had in looking after Warren, taking compassion on him when he was five and his mother was abandoning him. The film also has a great deal to say about Aboriginal men and women, Flo and her promiscuity in her early days, her love for her husband, his collapse and going to work in Port Hedland and his death through alcohol poisoning.
In the meantime, the monologues of Dellmay and Keith say a lot about middle Australia, Dellmay and her aristocratic aspirations, yet her feelings of worthlessness. Keith has been the typical Australian, voicing his concern about his wife, about his daughter, about his adopted grandson.
The film was directed by Margot Nash who also directed the film, Vacant Possession.
The screenplay was written by Kathleen Mary Fallon who had also written a seven-minute short film about a suicide, Laquiem. The songs in the film were written and sung by Vicki Saylor.
1. The impact of the film? For Australian audiences? Overseas audiences? Insight into the Australian way of life in the 20th century?
2. The focus on dialogue and monologues? The effect for a television audience? The equivalent of a filmed play of talking heads?
3. The structure, the five characters, situating them, their location for their monologues, the interactions of Dellmay and Keith, of Warren and Kate? Flo in the hospital? The musical score? The songs?
4. The background of the history of Aboriginal Australia, Torres Strait and Thursday Island? The Aborigines, life on the island, the presence of the Malays? Work, possibilities? Families? Young girls, flirting, sexuality, pregnancy? Flo and her miscarriages? Giving birth to Warren? Letting him go? The social workers and their concern? The nurses and their concern? The migration from Thursday Island, to workers in Port Hedland, to Flo going to Brisbane? To Sydney? The place of Aborigines in Australian society? Prejudice? Death by alcohol? The importance of the headstones in the cemetery? Memories?
5. Kate, her age, manner, tough? On the plane, the whisky? Seeing Warren, her comments on Warren? Her memories, her work as a nurse, compassion for Warren, attitude towards Flo? Her home relationships with Lucille? The social workers and the visit, Lucille under the bed? The roommate, his boyfriend, separation, Kate marrying him to provide parents for Warren? Her description of Warren as her little boy, his screaming, tantrums? His disabilities, being deaf, blind? His growing up with Kate? His going off? The importance of the television program, his answering questions for the interviewer, making them up, delving into the background of the Stolen Generation? People’s reaction to Kate because of this story? His disappearance? Her finding him, his coming on the plane, talking about him, looking back at him? Her attitudes towards Flo, bringing Warren to meet her? Her attitude towards her parents? Separation from them?
6. Flo in hospital, her age, experience, sympathetic, her illness? Her memories of her own life, as a girl, pregnant? Albert and her love for him, marriage, the miscarriages? The birth of Warren, giving him up? Moving away? Her burying Albert in Port Hedland? Her anticipation of Kate, of seeing Warren again?
7. Warren, his eighteenth birthday, coming on the plane, the didgeridoo, passing Kate, in the seat, the microphone, his memoirs? His talk, his memories, Flo, Kate? The television program and his answers? Playing the didgeridoo? His future ahead of him?
8. Dellmay and Keith, their house, Dellmay and her being tidy, prim and proper? Her background, marrying beneath her? Her attitudes towards Kate, Kate leaving, yet a mother’s love? Her concern about Warren? Flo? The racial prejudice? Keith, sitting in his chair, television, having a beer, his speeches about being Australian? His being the average Australian?
9. The cumulative effect of listening to these people speaking? Telling their stories? Reflecting the different aspects of Australian society?
