EMMA'S WAR
Australia, 1985, 97 minutes, Colour.
Lee Remick, Miranda Otto, Mark Lee, Terence Donovan, Pat Evison, Grigor Taylor.
Directed by Clytie Jessup.
Emma's War is a pleasing, nostalgic look at Sydney and society in 1942. It focuses on a mother whose husband is serving abroad, and her two daughters at school. She takes them away from school after the attack on Sydney and they live in the Blue Mountains. Ultimately, the husband returns home wounded and the family has to make its life together. The film focuses on Emma, the adolescent girl, and her growing into womanhood.
The film is beautifully photographed, has a strong sense of period. Lee Remick came to portray the mother (perhaps unnecessarily as an American in Australia). Miranda Otto is excellent as Emma. There are some delightful supporting roles including Pat Evison as a daffy theosophist principal of a boarding school, and Mark Lee sympathetic as a deserter.
The film has the atmosphere of the times, a strong sense of costume and decor. It compares with another 1985 film, Rebel, which looks at American soldiers on R & R in Sydney.
The film was written and directed by Clytie Jessop, a film-maker of short features, a member of the talented artistic Boyd family.
1. The impact and appeal of the film? An evocation of the '40s? A portrait of an adolescent girl growing up?
2. The re-creation of the '40s in Sydney, in New South Wales, the Blue Mountains? The use of location photography? The city, the school? The natural beauty and its remoteness? Decor? The insertion of the VJ Day film clips? The songs and the sense of period? John Williams' score and his guitar-playing?
3. The work of the writer-director. her personal contribution, a memoir? The device of the adult voice-over - the sense of memory, nostalgia? A girl's view and comment of the times, the experience of war? The film inviting interest. comparisons for different times, understanding?
4. The experience of World War Two: Australia and its involvement, the facts and details of the time, the call-up, Emma's father and his work as an artist, his fighting, New Guinea, war injury? The insertion of the radio newsflashes? The newsreels of the period? The American sailors or holiday, their loneliness, drinking? The women left behind? Loneliness, going to the hotels, meeting the Americans? The question of fidelity and infidelity? The women working in the factories. their skills? Schools? Rationing? Soldiers and call-up, conscientious objectors, 'the conchy'? The reaction of ordinary people to the 'conchy'? VJ Day and the celebration? The impact of the war on ordinary people's ordinary lives, the change for the post-war period?
5. The portrait of the family and Emma within her family? The focus on women, at home, coping? Emma and her age, questions, relationship with her mother. with Laurel, missing her father? School, the unusual experience of the theosophist school? A girl and her girlish manner? Education styles. freedom of choices? Brian and the romance? The outings, the picnics? Changing, the shower, sexuality - and her ignorance? Her being taken out of the school and transferred? Her not being welcome at the new school? Decision to play truant? The discovery of John. attracted by him, listening to his views - 'I suppose'? Her conventional understanding of the war and soldiering? The teacher and her reporting her? Her reaction to her mother's drinking. 'Drunken cow'? The reconciliation? Her joy at her father's return? Trying to understand him with his injuries, modelling for his paintings? Her growing sensitivity? Her growing up and the glimpse of her in the celebrations of VJ Day? Her future? The portrait of an Australian?
6. The comparison with the portrait of Anne: with the girls at the picnic, her own personal loneliness, phoning and going out, setting the bar and drinking, the encounter with the American sailors - her loneliness, sexuality, questions of fidelity and infidelity? Her work. riveting? Drinking and sharing? The Americans and her friendship with the sailor, American life, the concert. home and drunk? The attack on Sydney? Her panic and decision to move the daughters? Going to the school and taking them away? The bonds between mother and daughter - the walk in Hyde Park, the war memorial. home sequences? The contrast with being in the house in the mountains? Her managing and not managing, anger, truancy, reconciliation, the return of her husband and his pain, the delicacy of the sexual encounter, his being hurt? Meals and weeping, his art. the outing at the expensive restaurant? The reconciliation of her future life with her past? Portrait of a woman of her period?
7. The sketch of Laurel - vivid, her place within the family. school, her directness, living in the country, the new school, the truancy, friendship with John, love for her father? Sharing and mirroring Emma's growth?
8. The father and his influence while absent, the bonds between wife and daughters with him? The drama of his return, sentiment, injury, pain, slowly adapting, the union with his wife, his work, art. Emma modelling for him. the restaurant outing?
9. The sketch of the Americans through Hank - loneliness, on furlough, sensitivity, his story, listening to Anne's story, violins. the concert. the return home, the intimacy. fidelity?
10. John as the sympathetic 'conchy': the facts of his experience, his story, his explanation, his reading Judith Wright's poetry, sharing experiences with Emma? His beliefs, the hostility of the townspeople. the milkman tracking him down, his arrest, the punching? Emma romanticising him - as Tyrone Power?
11. The school - the theosophists and their beliefs, the management of a boarding school, the details of classes, the kitchen. dancing, social graces? The principal and her staff - affable eccentrics? The interest in eastern religions? Their guests? Assemblies? The interest in alternative viewpoints on education? The children in the school and their being at home? The romantic notions of the girls - the music of the times, the films?
12. The contrast between city life and country life in the '40s? A feminine memoir?
