CLAY

Australia, 1965, 85 minutes, Black and white.
Jean Lebedew, George Dixon, Chris Tsalikis, Claude Thomas, Bobby Clark, Sheila Florance, Lola Russell.
Directed by Georgio Mangiamele.

Clay is a short film coming from Australia at a time when there was no dream that there would be an Australian industry, the mid-60s. Very few films were made in Australia at this time. This is an experimental film – set in the world of the imagination, art, pottery … It is also a drama, a film about a stranger, family, the effect on a young girl – and issues of life and death. It is an interesting example of what could be done at this particular time in Australia – an indication that the industry could develop when it eventually came in the early 1970s.

1. The overtones of the title and its meaning? Human clay, rain and mud, pottery, moulding and creating? Were these themes brought out during the film?

2. How successful was the black and white photography? The creation of atmosphere with the weather and the countryside? The use of music?

3. How well used was the Australian landscape? The use of trees and hills, country roads, isolated houses, the town and its environments? Did the story fit in with the Australian landscape? Was this film immediately identifiable as an Australian film? Did it intend to be?

4. How important was art for this film? The styles of the film making it arty? Art and creation and the people in the film creating? Art colony and the selling of works? How was this related to clay and the people?

5. Were the characters well drawn? The nature of change and stability, instability of character and emotions? Did the dialogue make character and changes credible? Or not?

6. The important role of the stranger? How enigmatic a character was he? How attractive? Our only knowing that he was pursued by the police? His gradual revelation of some of his memories? His response to being saved? To being loved? His fear and hesitation to commit himself? His relationship with the girl and the change in him? The pessimism of his being the victim of jealousy, having to escape again, bringing death? Was he a symbol rather than a character? Was he successful as a symbol of change?

7. How attractive was the portrayal of the girl? As ordinary, relating to her father, to the members of the colony, as the object of jealousy and lust? Her wanting to possess love, to be possessed? Her sense of being lost, her sense of destiny, premonition of death? How did she change during the film? The effect of the stranger on her? The effect on her to death? Again was she successful as a symbol of womanhood, change?

8. How realistically portrayed was Tony? His jealousy? His responsibility for the girl's death? A character or a symbol of jealousy? Successful?

9. How sympathetic was the father? In saving the stranger, welcoming him into his home, an artist and the revelation of him through his work, the sense of loss with his daughter?

10. How well portrayed were the other members of the household? Their reactions to the stranger, to the girl, to her father, to Tony?

11. How important were the dance sequences? As an immersion in the real world, yet partly filmed as unreal? A real town for real people?

12. The unreal world of the imagination, feeling, love, the fact that this would not last? How did it contrast with the real world of work, the police, rain and mud, jealousy?

13. How dramatic was the final chase? How real and relentless? How desperate? Was it a fitting dramatic climax? How did it symbolise the states of mind and feeling of the characters?

14. The significance of the death at the end? Did the girl seek her death? Was it an appropriate conclusion for this film? Who was responsible - the stranger, Tony, herself? (The importance of the fights between Tony and the stranger as background to the death?)

15. The film was only short. It aimed to be successful in style and content. Was it successful in what it set out to do? Or did it seem pretentious? Why?