movies
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday March 28, 2011
Unknown World Sounds of SandUnknown World(1951) ABC1, 12.20am (Mon)The aptly named Dr Jeremiah Morley, envisaging a nuclear holocaust and hoping to preserve a few working specimens of mankind, plans an expedition into the bowels of the planet using an atomic-powered mechanical mole known as the Cyclotran - a souped-up Studebaker with a heroic auger. Boring! It duly creates a route as a small party tunnels deep into the planet's mantle where, in cavernous precincts, colonies of intelligent people might see out the post-apocalyptic wastelands on the surface. All well and good until the government cancels his funding. Enter a super-rich entrepreneur who agrees to underwrite the caper on condition he be allowed to join the expedition. Away they go through the magma en route to a subterranean region with its own ocean and a phosphorescent light source where, alas, emotional friction intrudes.Sounds of Sand(2006) SBS One, 1am (Mon)Somewhere in Africa. The village well has run dry, cattle are starving, people are next. There's little option but to abandon the village. The majority head south but Rahne, the only person in the community able to read and write, decides to take his wife Mouna and their three children east. They have one camel, a few sheep and some goats. That's it. No roads, no maps, no guarantee of success or even of an end to the journey. The sun blazes, the terrain is hostile but the objective of the exodus remains clear - survive and reach amenable pastures. The family's chances dwindle. They encounter others who have perished and those who would willingly take what they have to expedite their own chances. Marc Durin-Valois's novel is heartbreaking and Marion Hansel's adaptation, shot in Djibouti, is a strongly committed rendition. Some critics have rubbished it for its cultivated dialogue and laundry-fresh wardrobe, with one calling it a "romanticised film made by a middle-aged Western woman aimed at ... middle-aged Western women". In short, a fairytale with an upbeat ending justifying the goodness of ... er ... middle-aged Western women. But perhaps that's too literal a reading. We have choices based on economic imperatives. Rahne and his family can only choose what is ordained by survival imperatives.
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald
