The issue of identity in Beneath Clouds by Ivan Sen
📌Category: | Entertainment, Identity, Movies, Sociology |
📌Words: | 485 |
📌Pages: | 2 |
📌Published: | 15 January 2022 |
Beneath Clouds is an excellent work of cinema, with its visual strength echoing the inner worlds of the two young protagonists, who are both prisoners in some way within their environment. Lena (Dannielle Hall), a teen living in a small town, is tormented mostly by dread that she will never be able to escape. Lena dreams of a place where she belongs when she journeys to Sydney to seek her Irish father unhindered by the brutal compassion of a remote community with little plans for the future Along the way, she befriends Vaughn (Damian Pitt), an escapee from a juvenile detention facility, and the two are intertwined by their shared quest - towards Sydney and the desire to be free of society limitations.
Ivan Sen's first feature film, Beneath Clouds, marks his directorial and writing debut. Sen is one of many Indigenous filmmakers working today to tell human stories that are appealing to a wider audience. While the director's narrative tactics for communicating ideas are solidly rooted in Indigenous sensibility and cultural perspective,The topic is applicable to everyone. Sen uses cultural markers in a poetic way. Vaughn's relationship with trees, for example, and the solitude they provide, resonates with an Indigenous cultural affinity to land. Or when Lena discovers that the misty mountains of Ireland she constantly talks about, they are in fact the misty mountains that dot her voyage to Sydney Her inner environment, so to speak, and also a cultural connection to location, are represented.
The issue of identity is important to all adolescent lives, and Sen's two adolescent protagonists are no exception. Lena is now on a journey away from her mother, towards an ideal symbolized by her absent Irish father, whereas Vaughn, who is unhappy with his mother, is now on a journey towards his mother in an attempt to understand himself. The crucial issues here are not Indigenous or non-Indigenous, but rather societal processes that place the drama in context. The actual problem is the concept of an ideal, a better place than here, a "somewhere other" where the grass is greener. Sen's major achievement is that he tells this story without demeaning either the Indigenous or non-Indigenous characters without relying on stereotypes or oversimplification. Perhaps as a result of Sen's previous experience as a photographer, he manages to make his voice as clear as possible in this drama, allowing the audience to observe, interact with, and relate to two Indigenous characters without being hindered by elements that would otherwise exclude a non-Indigenous audience.
Tears (1998), Dust (2000), Vanish (1998), and Shifting Shelter 2 are among Sen's other films (2000). Beneath Clouds won the AFI Award for The best Director (Ivan Sen) and Best Cinematographer (James Cameron) (Allan Collins). Dannielle Hall and Damian Pitt, both from Wee Waa and Moree, respectively, are both first-time and untrained actresses who have been discovered during Sen's year-long search for the perfect people to play Lena and Vaughn. Dannielle's performance earned her the Best Female Newcomer Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002. Allan Collins, who co-directed Dhakiyarr vs The King and was also the cinematographer for Beneath Clouds, won the AFI Award for The best Cinematography (2004).