In the lecture we screened a short film called ‘End of the Line’ – the film shot in Broken Hill.
Please describe in 300 words or less if you think they achieved what they set out to do. You may not remember much detail, if so, it could be helpful to talk about your first impressions, after all this is what most of us are left with after one viewing. Feel free to write to any categories you wish (eg. story, choice of participants, sound, camera, editing, etc.).
I found the short film ‘End of the Line’ by RMIT students of a previous year to have been completed to a very high standard. The documentary was incredibly powerful in evoking an emotional response for me personally, and I found the resident’s of Broken Hill’s outlook on life to be extremely bleak and depressing, even morbid at times.
The film’s subjects were fascinating, although at times sad and disheartening, and always had an interesting, or at least thought-provoking perspective regarding life itself. Although the film seemed to centre around the woman who had “come to Broken Hill to die”, I did feel at times she was simply repeating herself, and perhaps this time could have been better spent with more screen time given to the other local residents, who were often just as intriguingly polarizing. One clear fault was the audio crackling in some of these windswept outdoor interviews.
The framing of the shots of the desolate landscapes throughout Broken Hill were exceptional, captured throughout varying times of the day, and the colours of the red hot sand and cloudless blue sky, even when viewed through the lecture theatre’s murky projector, were visually stunning. The shots of the skeletal remains of wild outback animals and the wreckage of old sheds and other tin structures laying in the barren dust land while the residents contemplated their future and end was also rather spooky.
I found it to be an exceptional piece of work.