LOOK BOTH WAYS

Australia, 2005, 118 minutes, Colour.
Justine Clark, William Mc Innes, Andrew S. Gilbert, Anthony Hayes, Daniela Farinaci, Sascha Horler.
Directed by Sarah Watt.

The title of Sarah Watt’s small but award-winning film sounds like a Jungian exhortation to wholeness. No matter what our personal preferences and characteristics, we still have to look both ways.

Commentators on the Australian film industry might say that when it comes to promotion of directors and awards, it is rather a look one way: at male directors. Looking at this a little more closely reveals something unexpected from 2003. Gillian Armstrong won Best Director in 1979 for My Brilliant Career. Then, in 1986, Nadia Tass won for Malcolm. Move to 1991 and Jocelyn Moorhouse won for Proof. After that, no more women directors until 2003. The interesting point is that in 2003, 2004, 2005 the Best Director awards went to women directors: Sue Brooks for Japanese Story, 2003, Cate Shortland for Somersault, 2004, and now Sarah Watt for Look Both Ways.

Is there a particular characteristic that is common to these films? Is there a particular characteristic that could be called more feminine than masculine? That, of course, is a difficult and controversial question. However, one characteristic that emerges from these three films by women is ‘vulnerability’. Vulnerability is something experienced by men and women but is associated with the ‘feminine’ in both, with its emphasis on subjectivity, situations and circumstances and the need for making allowances in coming to decisions.

A suggestion as to why this should make an impact in Look Both Ways is that the film is concerned with death. At the centre of the film is physical illness and death. Nick (William Mc Innes, who is Sarah Watt’s husband off-screen) is diagnosed with cancer, a sudden and unexpected diagnosis. How does a man deal with this news? Is there someone he can communicate it to? Nick, a press photographer, seems to be able to confide solely in his editor. Rather, the film shows his introspection, the aloneness he has to face in this life-then-death situation.

One of the qualities of the film is Sarah Watt’s ability to suggest and explore experiences of introspection. In her previous short films, she has demonstrated her ability at animation, not so much animated characters as paintings in motion, in rhythms, in patterns, as in her award-winning, Small Treasures (1995)). This is particularly true of the other central character in Look Both Ways, Meryl (Justine Clark). Meryl is also grieving, not for herself, but for the death of her father from whose funeral she is returning home. Animated inserts suggest Meryl’s anguish and pain.

It is death which brings Nick and Meryl together, a death on the railway lines, perhaps accidental, perhaps deliberate. Meryl has seen it. Nick has come, immediately after his diagnosis, to photograph the aftermath.

Nick returns to the scene later to meet Meryl. The suggestion is that they might be soul-mates, aspects of death bringing them together, some kind of complementarity in compassion in love. The difficulty is that Nick is unable to communicate to Meryl either his condition or the desperate bewilderment he is feeling.

Once again, Sarah Watt dramatises introspection by inserting flashbacks of Nick’s father and his terminal illness, the son remembering his father’s stubbornness and asserting of independence the more helpless he became and his mother’s tenderness and exasperation in her continued care. The film brings this interiorising of his fears and comparisons with his father into the actual world when Nick takes Meryl to meet his mother.

The Australian inarticulate male almost ruins the relationship which has brought such love and affirmation to the warm Australian female – and to physical ruin as Meryl runs from the emotion and tongue-tied Nick and is almost knocked over by a car. The resolution comes with Nick’s freedom to express the truth about himself inviting Meryl to share his illness, welcoming her in to the deepest parts of his life.

While the core of Look Both Ways is powerful in engaging its audience in the vulnerability of the central characters, Sarah Watt invites the audience to identify with a briefly but clearly-drawn group of supporting characters, all of whom are concerned with death and life issues.

The editor, in whom Nick has confided and who has been caught off guard by the news and struggles with what he should say and do, has been busy with work and is challenged to come closer to his wife and children. The rather gung-ho journalist friend, (Anthony Hayes winning the Best Supporting Actor award), has been writing cavalierly on suicide and death wishes, finding the rail lines death grist for his journalistic theories and articles. Meanwhile, estranged from his wife and child, he has been involved in an affair and is confronted with his girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy. Abortion or not? Death of the child or not? His choice or not? Her choice and responsibility. (And she tells him that his theories about suicide are rubbish.)

And, grieving in the background, is the wife of the dead man, who has been photographed for the paper. More enigmatically, is the grieving man at home with his silent family, who gets into his car with his son – and who, it emerges, is the train driver whose life has changed because of the accident. The scene where the driver visits the widow and she reassures him that the accident was not his responsibility is a moving sequence of understanding and the lifting of a burden.

That is the world of Look Both Ways. It is not afraid of introducing the often shunned or avoided theme of mortality and death, of terminal illness and of accident. Australian audiences were able to receive this film and its themes and be moved. They have responded to being led into Sarah Watt’s world of vulnerability, of a world where logic and principles go only so far, where deep human feeling and feelings are the means of coping.

1.The impact of the film? In Australia? Overseas? Awards? Australian interest, universal themes?

2.The visual style: the straightforward narration, the sense of realism, the insertion of animation to illustrate Meryl’s imagination? Imaginative touches? The collages? The flashbacks? The musical score and the songs?

3.The title, accidents, needing to look both ways? Forward and back? Right and left? The motif of the railway and the rail lines? Illness and crises? Life and death?

4.The focus on a small group of characters, insight into the characters, into their inner selves, their inner lives? Their interactions? The relationship of each character to issues of life and to death?

5.The action taking place over a couple of days, the events? The range of deaths and the influence on each of the characters?

6.The world of the newspapers, reporters, editors, photographers? Popular articles – and bias? The public’s reaction? The media and the intrusion into people’s lives? People disagreeing with journalists and their perspectives?

7.Meryl, her age, background? On the train? Her imagination – with the touch of death and doom? The influence of her father dying? Her place in the family? Her walking from the station, the impact of the accident, the arrival of the photographer? At home, memories of her family? The encounter with Nick, the bond between them? Talking? His visit? The build-up to the sexual encounter, their loneliness, needs, complementarity? The visit to Nick’s mother? Her reaction when she felt he was dropping her? Running, almost run over? In the rain? Her weeping? Meeting again with Nick and the bonds between the two – healing and hope for the future?

8.Nick, as a character, age, experience? The interview with the doctor, the discussion about cancer, its being indefinite? The reference to the specialist? His telling the editor and the editor’s reaction? The encounter with the photojournalist, going to the accident? The journalist not knowing? Seeing Meryl, going home, his reflection, serious reflection? His return to the scene? Meeting Meryl again? The interplacing of the memories of his father, his illness, his mother helping, the father wanting to be independent? His wanting to be more positive than his father?

9.Andy, his work at the paper, the articles, his theories about suicide? His going to the scene? Nick’s photographs? The article, the visit of the family, his children, his wife, the separation? His meeting with his girlfriend? Her character, relationship, her love for him, explaining her pregnancy? His detached response? The issue of abortion? The visits home, the interplay of these problems? His playing cricket? In the rain, meeting his girlfriend again, her challenge to him, his weeping in the rain? His wife seeing him with his girlfriend? His going back? What had he learnt? Issues of life and death? His suicide theories and his girlfriend’s rejection of them?

10.Andy’s girlfriend, her relationship with Andy, her work, her pregnancy, talking with him, his inability to respond? Her life, her choices? Her seeing his wife?

11.The glimpse of Andy’s wife, at home, the separation, the children, his bonds with them? Her response to his being at cricket? With the girlfriend?

12.The editor, his role at the paper, his love for his family, his work, the birthday for his daughter, the gifts, his watching the party, being content? His response to Nick, to Andy?

13.The glimpse of the accident victim’s widow, her grief, the photo in the paper, meeting Meryl? The visit of the driver of the train, the pathos and sadness, the reconciliation?

14.The driver, his being stunned by what had happened, at home, his inability to act, his wife, his son sitting reflecting? The decision to go to visit the widow, speaking to her, his son in the background? The acknowledgment of grief, her saying that it was not his fault? The need for this kind of human contact in such a tragedy?

15.Nick’s mother, the memories of his father, his wanting to be independent, the hospital, bed, the mother helping, her exasperation?

16.The move towards reconciliation? The characters having time to reflect on themselves, on their interactions, on the significance of deaths? An affirmation of life? The collages to capture for the audience the reality of what they had experienced in the film?