The Quiet Room

Clip 2: Adults behaving like children

3 min 5 sec

Taken from the feature The Quiet Room (1996)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG

A video which normally appears on this page did not load because the Flash plug-in was not found on your computer. You can download and install the free Flash plug-in then view the video. Or you can view the same video as a downloadable MP4 file without installing the Flash plug-in.

Availability of the complete title

Curator’s clip description

The mother (Celine O’Leary) loses patience with her daughter’s silence, declaring that she won’t live in a pigsty any longer. The father (Paul Blackwell) tries to cheer her up with an offer to cook – but the mother has the dinner already planned. The girl (Chloe Ferguson) renews her stubborn determination to bring her parents back together by her silence.

Curator’s notes

Much of the film is shot from low angles to approximate the child’s height. The deep shadows across the mother’s face suggest a dark anger, and de Heer uses shadows on walls to suggest scary monsters. We often see these shadows before one of the adults enters the room. The contest of wills intensifies in this scene and it’s a three-way struggle in which the child is at least as determined – and probably more cunning – than the adults.

Paul Byrnes, curator

australian screen