THE NOSTRADAMUS KID

Australia, 1993, 120 minutes, Colour.
Noah Taylor, Miranda Otto, Jack Campbell, Erick Mitsak, Alice Garner, Lucy Bell, Colin Friels, Peter Gwynne.
Directed by Bob Ellis.

The Nostradamus Kid is an autobiographical film from writer Bob Ellis. Ellis was brought up as a Seventh Day Adventist in northern New South Wales. This screenplay gives him the opportunity to look back at his childhood and his adolescence, the narrow focus of the Adventists, the need for many of the Adventists to break out into the wider world but hampered by the careful attitudes of the late 50s and early 60s.

The film recreates the atmosphere of the Adventist community, the summer camps, the devoted young adherents and the rebels. The film then moves to Sydney with the young Bob Ellis character going to Sydney University, getting into all kinds of trouble, especially sexual. He has a mate (in fact, Bob Ellis's mate at Sydney University was poet Les Murray) and his entanglements with various people at the university. He is also haunted by the millennial and apocalyptic attitudes of the Adventists, expecting the end of the world at any time (especially in the fearful years of potential nuclear holocaust of 1962 and 1963). The film shows a more balanced Ellis as he grows older, it also shows the lives of some of his closer friends as the years go on, many with disillusionment with Adventism.

Noah Taylor is excellent as the Bob Ellis character, bringing his skilful awkwardness to create a character in depth. Noah Taylor had been excellent in such films as The Year My Voice Broke and Flirting and was to go overseas and appear in a wide range of films from Max where he was the young Hitler to the Lara Croft movies. Miranda Otto is his girlfriend. A group of character actors takes the supporting roles, including Colin Friels as an Adventist motivator. Bob Maza appears as a mysterious Aborigine - who brings the wisdom of an elder as well as a rather sardonic approach to Australian culture.

1. Bob Ellis as an Australian personality, writer, commentator, political presence? This film as a memoir? His career - brilliant and not? The voice-over commentary by Ellis himself?

2. The picture of New South Wales in the 50s and 60s, the coastal towns in northern New South Wales, the Adventist camp? Sydney, the inner suburbs, the streets and flats? Sydney University? The atmosphere of the time, music, songs?

3. Australia and its attitudes towards the Seventh Day Adventists, seeing them as a sect, their worship on Saturday, their segregating themselves from society, their attitude towards God, grace, sinfulness? - their attitudes towards films?

4. The practice of Adventism, the people who believed, their proper behaviour, the range of preachers? The influence of the United States? The motivator? The one-handed preacher? The questions of theology, the discussions with Ken, especially by the American, theology, spirituality? The issues of films and dances? The bikers? The importance of not having any doubts, having moral certitude? The attitude towards immorality, doubts and disbelief? Mrs White and the influence?

5. The title of the film, Nostradamus as an alleged prophet, the false fulfilments of his prophecies? Superstition? Apocalyptic attitudes - and the world not ending?

6. The structure of the film: Ken and his voice-over, his religious journey, his sexual journey? The insertion of the flashbacks? The change in his life during the 50s and 60s? Twenty years later?

7. Noah Taylor as Ken, his screen presence, appearance? His interior life and its being voiced? Young, going to the Billy Graham rally, its being visualised? What he was like at sixteen, at nineteen? His preoccupation with sex, his relationships - and the incongruous comedy of his going to the wrong flat? At the university, his editing Honi Soit, his friendship with Macalister, his meeting with Jenny? Work, loneliness, awkwardness? His gatecrashing the party? Fall? Meeting Meryl? Cannibal? Macalister and the arrest, Wayne Gibson helping him, prison? The build-up to the apocalyptic journey, especially in the light of J.F. Kennedy and the American nuclear experience?

8. Ken as young, his relationship with his mother, swearing, writing, the letters, school and Wayne, their talking? Thelma and the kiss? The American motivator? The preacher with the one hand, inculcating a vision of the end of the world? Shooting himself? Esther, the letters? Touch? The end of camp?

9. Macalister as a poet, smug, self-confident, his friendship with Ken, the critique of Macalister and his attitudes, the irony of his marrying Jenny?

10. Jenny, her arrival, time, going to see Jules and Jim, the aftermath, the house, the gathering and the fall? Her awkwardness with him, yet her own self-confidence? The relationship, separation, the STD? Ken and his haunting her? Her agreement to leave with him, the apocalyptic journey? Her later leaving him, his gatecrashing, her embarrassment? The irony of her marrying Macalister?

11. Wayne, his talking with Ken, his curiosity about the university, the different way of life, his going bail for Ken, his marriage, the later meeting, with his wife, the discussions about the disillusionment during the meal?

12. Esther and Sarai, their father and his hold over them, strict Adventists? The letters? Going to the movie? The wedding? The issues of sexuality? Missionary?

13. Meryl, going with the bikers, her defying the authorities? Her becoming a stripper, the chance encounter with Ken, the sexual relationship? Her early death?

14. Cannibal, a realistic figure, a mythical figure? The Aboriginal background? His meeting with Ken, their discussions, his dispensing wisdom, his sardonic interpretation of events? His encouragement of Ken?

15. The social issues in Australia of the 1950s and 1960s, young people finding their identity, the way that they grew up, matured, relationships, study, religion, deeper questions about the existence of God?

16. Issues of religion, of Adventism as a sect in Australia, secular Australian attitudes towards the Adventists, churchgoing, moral codes, the forbidding of many activities, the narrow outlook? Young people and their reaction and rejection? The film's irreverent tone towards the religious issues? Yet so much of the screenplay on the meaning of the world - especially the scene with Macalister and he and Ken looking at the stars in the cemetery?

17. Australian humour, ironic and laconic?