LAST BREAKFAST IN PARADISE

Australia, 1982, 50 minutes, Colour.
Penne Hackforth Jones, John Hargreaves.
Directed by Meg Stewart.

Last Breakfast in Paradise won the Short Fiction prize at the Sydney Film Festival in 1982. It is an exploration of relationships in the Australian context, in the context of film culture - with the ironic title variation of Last Tango in Paris and with constant references to the film industry and acting and film-making. There is much dialogue - and some silences. It is a dramatisation of the Australian male and the Australian female and the uneasy communication.

1. The quality of this short film? Experimental film-making? Prize-winning material? Entertainment value? An intellectual short story?

2. The atmosphere of Sydney, Surfer's Paradise? External environments for interior locations? Colour photography? The musical score, the use of such songs as 'A Summer Place'?

3. The cinema background of the screenplay? Entertainment value for cinema buffs, recognising references and their relevance? Does it matter if audiences do not understand the references? Does the film still communicate to the general audience? The title and its play on Last Tango in Paris? Quotations from various films? Literary references: Proust, Colette, Mr. Asia? Cinema references and parallels: Goodbye Paradise, 79 Park Avenue, Kojak? The comparisons with soap opera characters and styles? The references to Kojak? The references to director Fritz Lang, Brigitte Bardot and their work together in Contempt? The visuals of the film? Statues? The emphasis on cinema techniques: tracking, the statues - blue? Brigitte Bardot and her sexuality, hair? Theoretical background of film-making? Personal response to films?

4. The talk about film-making? Theory: beginnings and ends? Lines? Characters and situations e.g. the wombats? Theory as illustrated? Reality unreality? Real situations and unreal dialogue? The atmosphere of unreality leading to meaning?

5. The introduction to Stephen and Angela: the cafe, car in the traffic jam, going fast, Resch's, the airport? Each character in himself, herself? Relationship? Tensions? Information as regards the marriage? The girl in the flat - the drink and the bath, the phone call? Angela and Kojak (talking, intrusions into conversation) ? To go up?

6. The holiday: pool, beach, reading. surveying the crowd and swimming, talk, watching Contempt, the bath and the hair-wash, dinner, the fight. the night and the talk. the beach walk, breakfast? Atmosphere of reality? Real people in the background? The atmosphere of Surfer's Paradise?

7. The importance of the dialogue in the film and the emphasis on talk: interrelationships, memories. the effect of each on the other. affair? The level of communication? The telling of stories - and listening or not e.g. the woman in the queue, the Toongabbie Head, the brace and cappuccino straw. the masseur, Proust, Contempt and understanding? The continuity of the talk, verbal and visual humour? Intellectualism and the analogy with prostitution? Monologues, jokes? The stories of the night?

8. The impact of the break-up: the sense, isolation, monologues, each not listening, love-hate. hate-love, emotional masochism, hurt, sick, unable to communicate?

9. The skill of the cast in making the characters come alive? The importance of their dialogue and monologues well-articulated and