THE SILVER BRUMBY
Australia, 1993, 93 minutes, Colour.
Caroline Goodall, Russell Crowe, Ami Daemion.
Directed by John Tatoulis.
The Silver Brumby is based on some popular family, children’s novels by Elyne Mitchell. The film focuses on the Victorian high country and was filmed in beautiful rugged locations around Mount Hotham in several seasons. The landscapes are magnificent and make the film worth seeing. The film was also a focus on horses and there are many, and many long scenes, of horses galloping through the countryside.
The film opens in rain and a storm with Elyne Mitchell (Caroline Goodall) comforting her daughter in the storm and giving her pages of her story, The Silver Brumby, to read.
In the meantime, the story takes life with Russell Crowe playing The Man who is good with horses, lives alone, pursues the silver brumby and its mother. Gradually, the story becomes real with life on the farm. There is an interlude where mother and daughter show their love for nature by caring for a small kangaroo.
The silver brumby itself becomes the horse of legend, and the film seems to be based on at least two of Banjo Paterson’s poems, Waltzing Matilda and The Man from Snowy River. The latter is drawn on in the pursuit of the horse through the rugged countryside. Waltzing Matilda, with the swagman jumping into the billabong and his ghost being heard is imitated in the horse galloping over the cliff and his ghost also being heard.
The film should please a younger audience, especially young girls who will identify with the daughter and her love for horses. (The film won a commendation from the Australian Catholic Film Office in 1993.)
1.The appeal of the film? Horses? The locations? The mythical aspects of the story? The young girl and her mother?
2.The importance of the landscapes, the mountains, the panoramic views, the different seasons, the life in the bush? The spectacular mountain at the end? The rousing score?
3.Audience response to films about horses, in the wild, galloping through the countryside? Corralled in a farm? The focus on the brumby and its mother? The birth, the difficult early stages, growing up, in the wild? Captured?
4.The framework with Elyne Mitchell telling her story to her daughter? The mother and daughter, the opening storm, the lightning, fears? The men going out to corral the cattle? The difficulties of the storm? Elyne Mitchell as a writer, writing all night, her daughter reading the story? The continued writing, the continued flashbacks bringing the story alive? Mother and daughter and their work, finding the kangaroo, caring for it, in the car, in the pouch? The daughter having to learn to let the kangaroo go into the wild? Her mother’s firmness? The finale with the story becoming real, the men coming to the farm, The Man going after the brumby? The daughter and her distress with the death of the brumby? Her mother telling the story, reassuring her, the spirit of the horse?
5.The portrait of the mother, her care for her daughter? The daughter, her age, concern for animals?
6.The Man, seeing him riding, bathing in the creek, living by himself? Riding? With the cattle? The horses, rounding them up? His interest in the brumby, the pursuit? The brumby eluding him? Hiding in the bush? Finally seeing him, Jock and Darcy and the pursuit? Even to the cliff edge? His reaction to the horses leaping over the cliff?
7.The brumby as a character, wild and independent, with its mother, growing up, the capture, the freedom? Death but immortality?
8.The film as a rousing story? The influence of Banjo Paterson’s tales and ballads? The contemporary setting? A piece of Australiana and the bush?
