Bliss

Clip 1: Bliss, punishment, heaven and hell

Taken from the feature Bliss (1985)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG

Curator’s clip description

Harry Joy (Barry Otto) is a successful advertising man, with a nice house, a wife he loves (Lynette Curran) and two children, David (Miles Buchanan) and Lucy (Gia Carides). After a long birthday lunch, Henry has a heart attack in his garden. He ‘dies’ for four minutes, during which he leaves his body and has a vision that frightens him back to life.

Curator’s notes

The scene moves very quickly and confidently from relaxed and comfortable to a nightmarish vision, full of religious imagery. The contemplation of hell is a long tradition, in both painting and literature. Bliss is like a modern version of Dante’s Divine Comedy and it uses a lot of religious iconography throughout to remind us of the tradition.

The narrator is Harry Joy as an old man – but this is a slightly different voice from the one used when the film was released. The first version of the film, screened at Cannes, ran 130 minutes and had this older sounding Harry. The film was then cut by 22 minutes for its Australian release, and Barry Otto recorded the narration with a younger sounding voice. When the film was issued on DVD years later, Ray Lawrence restored the film to its original length and with the original older voicing. Our clips are taken from that original version.

Paul Byrnes, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows Harry Joy (Barry Otto) at lunch with family and friends as a voice-over describes his seemingly perfect life and then what appears to be his sudden death. Harry steps outdoors, the screen fades to black, the camera moves upwards and the viewer looks down on his prostrate body. Harry’s shocked family gathers as the voice-over describes a pleasant out-of-body experience, followed by a vision of heaven and hell. The scene ends with an ambulance next to Harry’s body.

Educational value points

These opening scenes from Bliss capture the dark sense of humour that pervades the film as a whole. The sardonic voice-over by Harry as an older man retrospectively describes what appears to be his perfect life, one based on family, material pleasures and commercial success. However the visuals as the camera pans around the table, focusing on Harry’s family and friends, suggest that his vision of family life is not at all as he describes it.

In the opening sequence, the viewer is made aware of undercurrents that are cleverly hinted at through the acting. Harry appears to survey the scene with some detachment, while the voice-over describes his misapprehension that all is rosy. While we hear little of the actual conversation between the characters, their facial expressions and body language are full of meaning.

Filmed in 1985, Bliss tackles social themes that have ongoing relevance. The contrast between the voice-over – which describes the qualities, ambitions and interests of Harry’s family and friends – and the footage – which shows their uninterested, apathetic faces – suggests the shallowness of the consumer society. This is underlined by the fact that Harry’s success has been achieved through his advertising business.

The film techniques used in these scenes illustrate why Bliss was a trailblazer for humorous magical realism in Australian film. The camerawork, the underwater imagery and Harry’s reflective voice-over contribute to the filmic representation of Harry’s near-death experience.

Film language is used to create the shift from Harry’s life to his near-death experience. The camera’s sedate movement around the dinner table ceases with a fade to black, before the camera rises to present a bird’s-eye view of Harry’s body. The viewer is then swept along an underwater tunnel, special effects and sound adding to the sense of urgency. The climax occurs with a vision of a Christ-like figure before the abrupt return to the scene of Harry’s ‘death’ and the arrival of the ambulance.

These scenes from Bliss offer a filmic introduction to the imagination of Peter Carey, one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Carey (1943–) has won every major literary award in Australia and many international awards, including the Booker Prize for Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and the Man Booker Prize for the True History of the Kelly Gang (2001). Bliss received the 1981 Miles Franklin Award, the 1982 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award and the 1982 National Book Council Award.

Barry Otto has worked consistently and extensively in television, film and theatre since the mid-1970s and has won critical acclaim for his performances in Strictly Ballroom (1992) and another Peter Carey novel adaptation, Oscar and Lucinda (1997). Otto has been nominated for a number of Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, and won the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1992 for Strictly Ballroom.

Bliss was the first film by director Ray Lawrence, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Peter Carey. In 1985 Lawrence won the AFI Best Director Award for Bliss, and shared the Best Adapted Screenplay Award with Carey. Although he is not a prolific filmmaker, Lawrence’s films have met with critical and commercial success. Lantana (2001) won seven AFI Awards, including for Best Picture and Best Director. Lawrence’s third feature, Jindabyne, was released in 2006.