LILIAN’S STORY

Australia, 1996, minutes, Colour.
Ruth Cracknell, Barry Otto, Toni Collette, John Flaus, Fiona Press.
Directed by Jerzy Domaradzki.

The plot outline of Lilian's Story might be familiar from memories of Bea Miles of Sydney, the vagrant eccentric who proclaimed Shakespeare in the streets and who was forever getting into taxis and not paying (or so my memories go).

We are suddenly immersed in a story making its audience labour at understanding as it takes us into Lilian's memories, flashback glimpses of painful recall. Ruth Cracknell's forceful dominance as the older Lilian contrasts with Toni Collette's fragility and vulnerabilty as Lilian, younger. Barry Otto plays both the respected but brutal father and the emotionally impaired son. This is the core of Lilian's story: a precocious but repressed young woman is brutalised, verbally, physically, emotionally, sexually, by her father; her emotionally unstable mother disappears; her younger brother is ineffectual. She herself disappears into an institution for 40 lost years and emerges into the 90s, with something like an `awakening'. She now learns how to deal with the world, her past and to survive.

The film is like being given the pieces of a mosaic and having to put them together without the benefit of having any basic outline or design. The film is a challenge emotionally, and a confrontation about Australian family relationships, especially those that appear genteel yet are anything but.

Within Lilian's story there are many Lilian worlds and galleries of characters: moments of madness in an institution, violence and kindness among the prostitutes of King's Cross, the poets and the brutes who are taxi-drivers, the courts and prisons, vagrants and the buses, the wharf shelters and the palatial mansion that was her home. Lilian's Story, hard work though it may be, deserves close attention.

1. An Australian story? Sydney story? Based on fact? Adaptation of Kate Grenville’s novel?

2. The production values, the European sensibility, director, director of photography, composer?

3. The Sydney story, contemporary Sydney, in the city, the streets, the flats, Kings Cross, the girls, cafes? The institution? The court? The contrast with the past, the colour grading? The managing, the cliffs, the sea, the beach, atmosphere?

4. The two actresses and their performances? Complementary? The inter-cutting? Each illuminating the other?

5. The introduction to Lilian, the close-up of her face, the composition, her recital, Shakespeare? Age, appearance, tall and strong? Strong voice? Clashing with the authorities, with the head orderly? The defiance? Friends in the institution, the dining room, her recitations, their joining in? The departure?

6. Her aunt, taking her out, the end of 40 years in the institution, going to the new flat, settling in, Lilian’s reactions? John and his visit, their discussion?

7. Lilian, her behaviour, going out, friendship with the girls in the street? The men accosting them? Her reactions? Observations? Making friends with them, their characters, the group? Eating with them? The girls and their clients? Lilian and her performance of Shakespeare, collecting money? The audience’s growing, the dissatisfied customer who wanted something funny?

8. The taxis, her rides, not paying, the drivers, reactions?

9. Her violence, arrest, in jail, in the court, her father’s presence and his being ashamed?

10. The younger Lilian, considered unstable? Unstable or not? A father condemning her wild behaviour? The interactions with her father, the beatings and the collage of beatings at different ages and Lilian bending over for a beating in court? The sexual background, sensual, the assault? Looking in the mirror, naked? Her friendship with Frank, the talk on the beach, his love her, her father sending him away? Enclosed life? A fearful brother, seeing the abuse but not saying anything, running away? Being sent to the institution?

11. The character of her brother, young, seeing things, afraid? Later, timid, visiting the flat, his memories, his apology?

12. Frank, driving a taxi, Lilian and her ride? Frank’s place and tent, homeless? The discussions, the memories, his drinking? His character? Her reactions?

13. The inmate thinking she was the Blessed Virgin Mary, pregnant, her visit, Frank, Lilian helping with the birth?

14. Portrait of a disturbed woman, mental problems, eccentric, a victim? A future? And the fact that Bea Miles had happy final years?