Unfinished Sky (2007)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Peter Duncan

Writers:

Peter Duncan (written by)
Kees van der Hulst (screenplay)

Release Date:

31 January 2008 (Netherlands)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

to love, sometimes we must risk everything.

Plot:

An Outback farmer takes in an Afghani woman who has fled from a brothel. |

Plot Keywords:

Farmer | Female Nudity | Australia

Awards:

15 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

William McInnes	...	John Woldring
Monic Hendrickx	...	Tahmeena
Milo	...	Elvis
Bille Brown	...	Bob Potter
Christopher Sommers	...	Mike Potter
David Field	...	Sgt Carl Allen
Sam Cotton	...	Angus
Christina Anderson	...	Supermarket Shopper
Renai Caruso	...	Kate
Scott McRae	...	Policeman #1
Roy Billing	...	Royce
Mercia Deane-Johns	...	Barbara
Philippa Coulthard	...	Rose

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

Australia

Language:

English | Dari

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Netherlands:16 | Australia:M | New Zealand:M

Filming Locations:

Queensland, Australia

Company:

New Holland Pictures

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "De wereld draait door: (#4.67)" (2008)

Flawed socio-romantic drama

This film demonstrates how fragile film aesthetics are. Quite possibly as a novel, which takes time to read and allows us to accommodate shifts in our emotions, it could be fine. But here we have, essentially two conflicting stories that are jammed onto one another with destructive results.

One story is a tough, indeed brutal, issues movie dealing with justice, male dominance and humanist sentiments, the other is a touching romance about two vulnerable people trying to heal each other from their emotional scars. Neither of these is very original and the one, in my view, emotionally precludes the other. When we are steamed up about injustice, we cannot access the very fine-tuned emotions associated with love.

One of the greatest things about the film medium is its ability to twist time and integrate the past into the present. But here, that is the film's undoing. If the story had been told chronologically, we would at least have been able to get the nastiness out of the way and empathise with the romance, but the threat and extremely crude depictions of the 'horrors of the brothel' keep bursting back in, destroying any subtle emotions that have been generated.