TARFLOWERS

Australia, 1994, 50 minutes, Colour.
David Woloszko, Joan Lord, Robin Cuming, Pat Thomson, Max Fairchild, Sheila Kenelly, Les Foxcroft.
Directed by Tom Jeffrey.

Tarflowers was written by Terry Larson (FJ Holden, Midnight Spares) and directed by Tom Jeffrey - whose name does not appear on the final print. Instead, there is a credit to Geoffrey Bennett as artistic adviser.

The film is one of the original Winners series. It is a fantasy: a young man, intellectually handicapped, Kev, paints flowers on concrete and on walls in Sydney's Newtown. He encounters a wide range of people, some street people, the four-year-old little girl next door, and the welcoming garbage men in the area. However, Mrs Pearl of the Welcome Inn, the caricature of a social do-gooder, pursues him as a vandal.

While the film shows something of Sydney's inner suburban life, the fantasy tone and the optimism about the poor and marginalised comes to a Winners ending with the mural of the tar flowers bursting into life.

1.The Winners series: popularity, the aim of presenting a positive image of youngsters? This film's place in the series?

2.The short length, the visual style, editing, voice-over, storybook? The telemovie designed for the family audience?

3.The blend of realism and fantasy? Surrealism with the storybook, the flowers, the magic, the ending? Colour photography, the inner city suburb of Newtown? The score?

4.The title: the fact of the flowers, their symbolism, graffiti, the walls, the beauty and the glow, the colours? Their being preserved? The gardens for an inner city suburb? Their being interpreted as beautiful, as vandalism? The symbol of life in the drab city, transforming the city, the buildings and the people?

5.Newtown as a microcosm of the city, its limits, the families and their lifestyle, the houses, the routines? Kevin's mother, Mary's family? The neighbours? The mixture of good and bad? The activities of Newtown? The ordinary sequences: school, the parks, houses, the church hall? The caricatures with the hostel, the park, the school and Mrs Pearl and the headmaster? A magic world of appearing and disappearing, of magic characters dancing?

6.The focus of the film on Kev: his voice-over, intelligent and commonsense, his not going to school? Out at night, his routine, painting, the garden? The range of his friends, the dancing garbage man, Alec and Guy, Mary? The neighbour? His relationship with his mother? The encounter with Mrs Pearl, going to the Welcome Inn, having to eat, escaping? Her continued pursuit of him? The headmaster and his attack? Alec and guy and their talk? Sid and his friendship? Big, the dog companion? The dancer? Kevin and his routine, his wisdom, not worrying? Mrs Pearl and her changing his life, the rules, obeying? His painting the wall, the aftermath, going to the institution, what happened to him there, getting away? The portrait of a winner? Changing reality, painting on?

7.Kev's mother, the rules, his way of life and her acceptance, the friendship with the neighbours, the attack by Mrs Pearl?

8.Mary, nice little girl, love of colours, friendship, accompanying Kev, shopping, to school? The prospect of going to school? The other children? Sid and his friendship? Theo? The schoolyard, the families?

9.Mrs Pearl and the Welcome Inn, the government grant, making the men eat, their escaping from her, Kev letting them out of the van? The cook? Life at the hostel? Cans and the assembly line? Mrs Pearl and the headmaster, the sandwich? The henchmen and the wet jokes? Mrs Pearl and her wig?

10.Alec and guy and their memories, the dancer, Sid? The ordinary people - and extraordinary?

11.The climax, Kev's escape, the flowers - and their bursting into life?