Beneath Clouds

2003
7| 1h30m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 17 January 2003 Released
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Country: Australia
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

The story of Lena, the light-skinned daughter of an Aboriginal mother and Irish father and Vaughn, a Murri boy doing time in a minimum security prison in North West NSW. Dramatic events throw them together on a journey with no money and no transport. To Lena, Vaughn represents the life she is running away from. To Vaughn, Lena embodies the society that has rejected him. And for a very short amount of time, they experience a rare true happiness together.

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Reviews

Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.
AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
imdb-10420 Ultimately the fact that Vaughn doesn't recognise Lena as a fellow Aboriginal underlies the whole youthful crisis of identity that is so poignantly illustrated in this film. It's simple to gloss over the whole black vs. white thing, but these two kids are on the same journey, have the same problems and don't know what they're going to find when they get where they're going. That could be anyone, and Vaughn doesn't realise this at first.Having said that you can take just as much from the film in terms of what it is to be young, aboriginal and male in Australia, as opposed to young, white (which everyone in this film seems to simply assume of Lena due to her freckles) and female. Both are judged and abused as a consequence of their identity... I must say I do get a bit sick of the constant portrayals of an unavoidable culture of racism in Australia, and there's the one guy who gives them a lift in the film (without really saying anything) who is obviously designed to counter-balance this. I guess I'm just hanging out with the wrong people! I initially saw the first 60 minutes of this film on television but had to tear myself away to show up to some social engagement that I was consequently late for. I hired it on DVD to see the last 30 minutes, but watched it again from the beginning thinking I could skip some scenes - I didn't. It was well worth watching again from the beginning.It's an utterly pointless plot (it's a road trip) which becomes a beautiful story about the relationship between the two main characters and their personal aspirations of family. And it's amazingly illustrated. Highly recommended, and I'm off to look for the NZ version that another commentator here claims it was based on... but then again they do say something along the lines of "there are only 13 scripts in Hollywood".Compulsory viewing for all schools in Sutherland Shire and Lakemba. Anyway I'm blabbering now. I just wanted to give it a nine.
FilmartDD No doubt about it, Ivan Sen is the most talented film-maker working today in Australia. Others gain passing publicity, but Sen already has a notable body of work . Everybody, demand to see Sen's short film WIND in 35mm. This man has pure cinema senses -- pictorial, musical, content-wise and with actors. There is hardly a word spoken that matters, it is all in the aching faces, the hesitant gestures and the bleak settings of the country road. In politics and personnel administration, BENEATH CLOUDS would speak with humanity that cannot be denied, far more powerfully than any speeches, procedures or texts. Evidently not released to video overseas, no picture in IMDb's box - pity that basic business follow-up has not occurred for this fine film.
TuuliL For a foreign, the language is pretty hard to understand, because they use lot of slangwords.. Well. I liked this film. The aggregate is beautiful and harmony and I think it's categorized as an art film... I'm not sure, but that's what I was told to. The movie is about white girl and black guy, their sad stories and hate which becames to friendship and then love.
Philby-3 This is a deceptively simple story of two young people, both on the run, meeting up on a rural New South Wales road. Both are aboriginal and both are, for family reasons, headed for Sydney. Nothing particularly dramatic happens but there is enough incident to keep the viewer watching, and perhaps see life as it is for alienated young blacks in contemporary Australia. The director, Ivan Sen, has a strong visual sense, and he captures the land with breathtaking vistas (he also wrote much of the music). It is not the outback, it is the central west New South Wales of big commercial farming – cotton, sunflowers and corn, yet even the big farms are dwarfed by their surroundings. The young couple proceeds through this magnificent landscape beneath the clouds of the title preoccupied by their own problems, though the boy (Damien Pitt) is angrily aware that this is the land taken from his forbears. She (Danielle Hall) on the other hand rejects her Aboriginal background and focuses on her Irish father and the green misty land he came from.The dialogue is pretty sparse and the delivery often a little wooden but the two leads express the emotions required more than adequately. Their relationship could not be further from a conventional teen romance, rather they are two emotionally stunted people who come to realise they can still care for someone else.As for the rest, there are the inevitable black brothers in clapped out HQ Holdens, a just cruisin' but still hassled by the police, and plenty of hostile or merely patronising whites. One old white man (Arthur Dignam) does give them a lift but most whites give our couple a wide berth. I thought the story required a little more development; the film describes a situation rather than tells a story, but it does so with great simplicity and honesty. It's a cliché I know, but I await Ivan Sen's next work with great interest – he's a considerable talent.