TWO FRIENDS
Australia, 1986, 76 minutes, Colour.
Kris Bedenko, Emma Coles, Kris Mc Quade, Peter Hehir.
Directed by Jane Campion.
Two Friends is an arresting telemovie. It was also award-winning and was taken to the Cannes Film Festival. It is the first feature-length film by director Jane Campion and is based on a screenplay by novelist Helen Garner. The film focuses on teenagers in Sydney, their relationships, their parents. It also focuses on school, hopes and ambitions, dropping out. The film is striking in its use of reversing the time process (as did the film of Harold Pinter's play, Betrayal). The film starts in the present and continues to go back in time so that we see the broken relationship and where it came from.
1. A portrait of people? Of times? Of friendships? Teenagers? Adults?
2. The quality of the A.B.C. telemovie? Production values? Brevity? The use of Sydney, Bondi and the suburbs, homes and school, the world of teenagers, the adult world? The score and contemporary songs?
3. The structure: beginning in July, going back to February, January, December and the preceding October. The effect of watching these incidents and characters? 1
4. Audience resporse to the time structure: audiences capable of moving backwards, Louise and her ordinariness, Kelly and her change? The adults and their relationships? Audiences knowing what had happened, asking continued questions of why and how it happened?
5. Starting at the end and going back: the experience of school, the developmentl of the parents and their attitudes, the dashing of hopes, changing relationships, questions of sexuality, dropping out, death?
6. The focus on Kelly: death, punk behaviour and dress, thenbeach, being seen, her illness, the letter, the mother's birthday, the break with the family, going out? Questions about her future? Dropping out? Her father, his friends, advances and their effect? Poole and the boy at home? Holidays, the two girls together, shopping? The concert and school, the father and his attitude towards her school choices and future? Parents and divorce? Back to seeing her as an ordinary schoolgirl, the relationships, her hopes? A modern girl?
7. The contrast with Louise: talk, friendship with Kelly, ordinary, relationships, her parents, especially her mother, schools, the holidays and the buying of the uniform, Matthew, the hopes for city girls high, the interviews? A young modern girl?
8. Kelly's mother, the children and the exasperation, Malcolm and his boorishness,and refusingpermission for the school, condemning it as uppity? Kelly's father and his friend, the sexual advances, going out, etc?
9. Louise's parents, the opening with the funeral, at-home, father and pleasantness, Janet and dare, especially for Kelly? Phone calls, Kelly's stay-over, the shopping for the uniform, meals, school and plans? Friendship and talk?
10. The portrait of the parent generation? Louise's mother and her care and concern? Kelly's mother and stepfather? Her father and friend?
11. The glimpse of Sydney, home life, school, the beach, the teenage culture?
12. The opening of the film and the end of the process: the two friends and what they had experienced, the writing of the letter, hope for a future?
