THE LIZARD KING
Australia, 1985, 90 minutes, Colour.
John Hargreaves, Marie- Christine Barrault.
Directed by Geoffrey Nottage.
The Lizard King is an Australian- French co-production. It was directed by Geoffrey Nottage, a director of several ABC dramas including the telemovie White Man's Legend. It was written by Louis Nowra, who takes up the theme so popular in the literature and films about the Outback, themes explored in films like Walkabout.
The focus, however, is on a young Frenchman, reacting against his upbringing and coming to the opposite ends of the earth to traverse a desert and survive. His mother comes to Australia to find him. She teams up with a resisting guide. Her experience in the desert, as well as that of her son, has a transforming effect. It also offers the opportunity for an outsider to look at Australian cities and culture, the Outback, the landscapes and their effect on people who have settled in Australia.
Marie- Christine Barrault (Cousin Cousine' Stardust Memories) is effective as the mother and she is well-matched by John Hargreaves as the reluctant guide.
The film tries to blend realism with the mystique of the Australian landscapes and meanings.
1. Australian- French co-production, telemovie, intended audience? The mystique of Australia?
2. The work of Louis Nowra, the theatre, cinema? His exploration of Australian meanings?
3. The French perspective, seeing events and characters through Beatrice's eyes? The difference between French and Australian stories? Cultures? Rene and his leaving his well-known world and coming to another world? Setting out into the desert, surviving, finding a new world?
4. The title and the story of the lizard king? The myth? Beatrice telling it to Rene? Her telling it to Rhys? The Australian landscape as the lizard king - and the allegorical explanation to her search and the people that Rene encountered?
5. The Australian land and the landscapes: beauty, vastness, dry, hot, the colours, space? Humans dwarfed within these landscapes? The outback town and its life, the pub, the drive-in, the houses? The ghost towns? The dog fence for the dingoes? Camping out? The dry, the finding of water? The landscapes of reality, the landscapes of myth? Comparisons with the city of Paris, the city of Sydney (and the theatre in Sydney)?
6. Beatrice and her concern, her grief about her son, the puzzle, the news, her coming to Sydney, her friends, her looking at the Fred Williams painting, going outback, hiring the car, the advice, the young girl and her friendship, the discussions with Rhys and her bad experiences with him, the clash, the breaking of the light bulb? The drive-in and her plea? The clash and his final acceptance? Into the desert? The clues and following them, the driving, the homestead and the family and their information about Rene, finding Oliver sitting alone, in his car in the desert, the old man and his report? Her conviction that her son was alive? The clashes with Rhys, the gradual mellowing, her return to Sydney? The party and the performance - the staging of the Watteau painting? Rhys' return? Going back, more at home in the desert, change of perspective? Falling in love, the sexual encounter in the desert? The sudden ending of their search? Her meeting her son, growing to understand, the change in him and in her? The memories of her early life, on the move, theatre, the abandonment by her husband? The small boy and his growing up? The story of the lizard king and the explanation?
7. Rene and the opening of the film, the people refusing to take the photo, his not having a compass, his friendship with Oliver, talking in French, sharing perspectives? In the ghost town? People seeing him? His return? The significance of his leaving home, surviving in the desert? The flashbacks to his early life and the explanation of his character?
8. Rhys in himself, his work with the dingoes, surliness, home, the drive-in, breaking the bulbs, reluctant to help? His coming to Sydney, growing attraction towards Beatrice? The ghost town, the sexual encounter in the desert? Going to the burnt-out homestead and the Gothic story of his parents, financial failure, madness, death in the fire? The change in him? Would he ever go to Paris?
9. The background of the Australian characters in the Outback? The police, the girl, the people at the homestead, the little girl and the doll, the old man?
5. An old story - in different form? The Australian Outback and the individuals lost and finding themselves? The theme of loss and gain?
