SQUEAKER'S MATE
Australia, 1976, 55 minutes, Colour.
Directed by David Baker.
Squeaker's Mate is a short story directed by David Baker, whose only feature film was Mc Arthy. He directed the episode The Family Man in Libido (1973).
The film is set in Gippsland in the late 19th. century and is based on a Barbara Bainton short story. The film has a great deal of atmosphere of the period and shows the harsh attitudes of men and women in the pioneering days of Victoria. The film was not popular when released as a supporting feature. Audiences found it too violent. However, it is an interesting look at the harsher side of pioneer days.
1. An interesting short story? Gippsland in the 1880s? 19th. century pioneering Australia? The work of Barbara Bainton?
2. The quality of location photography, the atmosphere of the bush? The echoes of 19th. century art? The countryside, the huts, the hard work, the suffering?
3. The impact of a story of pioneers, ugliness and horror? The origins of Australian society with such a grim heritage? Madness and cruelty?
4. The basic triangle situation: the appearance of the three characters, their hard life, the slowness of life, dirt? The focus on piss and spit? The strength, toughness, size? The blend of beauty and squalor?
5. The man and his idleness, his bone-laziness, leaving the hard work to the strong woman, his self-centredness, stupidity, his being ordered around, his cruelty, drunkenness, the sale? The accident and his moving the woman? His cruelty to her? Neglect? The girl and her arrival, pregnancy? His continued laziness? The snakebite? A sketch of a character? The highlighting of the relationship between himself and the woman, the girl, the neighbours? The axe and the end?
6. The contrast with the woman, her size, skill with the axe, sewing, her silence? Her being hurt and left? The doctors and their treatment? Her lying in pain? The use of close-ups for her agony? Her needing water? The man's revenge on her? The eyehole and her looking through? The bargain with the man? Being dragged on the bark? The dog? The girl? The attack? Her control over the man? Her experience of cruelty? victim? The horror of the end? The portrait of a pioneer woman?
7. The girl: her arrival, the touch of beauty, the introduction to the squalor, the hard work, the pregnancy, her neglecting the woman, her curiosity, giving her water, the work, the baby, the snakebite? Her suffering from the heat, her arms? The next victim of the man?
8. The sketch of the neighbours? The doctors and the primitive conditions?
9. The life of the pioneers, dreams? Hard work? The later nostalgia for the pioneering days?
10. Themes of cruelty, hardness? The roles of men and women? The Australian image of men, of women? The sardonic black humour in this portrait of pioneers?
