MOUTH TO MOUTH

Australia, 1978, 90 minutes, Colour.
Kim Krejus, Sonia Peat, Ian Gilmour, Sergio Frazzetto, Walter Pym.
Directed by John Duigan.

Mouth to Mouth is a small-budget slice of contemporary Melbourne life written and directed by young film-maker John Duigan. Although not designed to make specific social comment, it reflects effectively the unemployment situation and the hardships of youth not trained to cope with prospects of a futile future. We see two jobless boys from the country and two girls from an institution seeking temporary work then shoplifting and doing escort jobs. The characters are well-acted and vividly drawn as is the city environment of shops, factory, home. There is no explicit moralising. We are presented sympathetically with this glimpse of average, humanly struggling uncertain youngsters. But it may do good highlighting problems.

1. The tone and meaning of the title? Hand to mouth? Mouth to mouth and sexuality? Expectations from the title?

2. The film was universally praised by critics and won jury awards. How well was this justified? The quality of the film in terms of scenes, acting, directing and presentation? The small budget and the production values?

3. The film was made with 16 min. film. The quality of photography, the presentation of locations, the authentic atmosphere? Musical score?

4. The impact of the actors and their work? Amateurs and near-amateurs? Individual performances, their blending together as a team?

5. The impact of the film as a slice of life: a glimpse, the audience immersed in the middle of the lives of these youngsters, an incomplete ending? The lives of these boys and girls in 1978? A glimpse of human nature with its complexities, a glimpse of a part of society? Glimpses of pressures, hopes, ability and inability to cope?

6. The film had no explicit moralising. The effect of this on the audience? Not being preached to and the response to the persons, their strengths and weaknesses, their situations? The problems raised: audience appreciation of these?

7. The importance of Melbourne and its background: the view of the city, the suburbs, especially where the girls' parents lived, the inner city with its streets, night life? The warehouse and suburbia? The railway tracks? The contrast with the beach? The inner city and the hotels, Bourke Street? How could audiences identify with the feel of the city and the urban style of life? Work in the city-factories, cafes?

8. The film as a portrait of people and their attitudes, strengths and weaknesses, inconsistencies, failures and achievements, hopes and disappointments, frustrations? The effect of these attitudes on the young people and their lives?

9. The main focus of the film on the girls? The opening in the institution, Jeannie and Carrie and the cigarettes and the fight with the other girls, the hostility towards the authorities? How sympathetically were the authorities presented? Carrie's room, their escape? The irony of their return to the institution at the end?

10. The contrast with the girls in the car, the drinking, the party? Carrie and her relationship with Tony? Sexuality - her drinking, intercourse - near rape? the other boys coming over and Jeannie defending Carrie? Carrie as passive and not defending herself? Her vagueness, wanting to go to the party? The tough world of Tony - as later confirmed by the scene in the hotel and the drinking, their bashing Fred to death? What chance did Carrie have with this background?

11. The portrait of the two girls? Their individuality, their care for each other? Their basic attitudes towards fife and where they acquired these? Their home backgrounds? The police bookings and the institution? Their moral attitudes? Their work in the cafe, the relationship with Ken and Serge, the pizza sequence, going to their rooms, attitudes towards sexuality? The episode at the motel and Serge's brother's place? Their driving around, the warehouse? The bond between the two and their sharing? Eg. Jeannie taking Carrie to the ladies' room and asking what she thought of the boys? Jeannie's continual protection of Carrie?

12. How strong a girl was Jeannie? Basic conventionality? Her capacity for loving Serge, for work? The exhilaration of the beach sequence? The growing love for Serge and their outings? Her coping with the situation - her shoplifting? Her decision for an escort job but only for the once? How much was revealed about her character and her inability to cope in her dealing with the client? Her talk etc.? Her dreams when she told him she was an air-hostess and her love for Serge? A protective girl? Her visit to her mother and the regrets of not having visited her, the pathos of the visit to the hospital? Her explanations of this to Carrie? The police taking her back and her looking pathetically out of the window? Her future? How strong a performance, how well-rounded a character?

13. The contrast with Carrie? A victim of society, a passive girl, not a leader? The variations in mood and the rapidity of moods? The escape, her relationship with Tony? With Tim and her not being able to fall in love as Jeannie did? Her continued wanting toast and peanut butter? Her visit to her own home and the disappointment with her family? Her capacity for stealing? Her cooking? Her escort job and her wanting to continue this, her wanting money? Her getting the drugs, her degradation and being sick in the railway lines and the encounter with Fred? Her asthma and humiliation and her low opinion of herself? Tim offering to help because she was his girlfriend? The city streets and her wandering them at the end, looking in shop windows? Her looking at herself in the mirror at home and smiling at her childhood photo? The film's strong emphasis on close-ups on her? How did she typify the themes of the film? The quality of her performance? A rounded character?

14. The characterisation of the boys? Their bonds with each other, their backgrounds? Wonthaggi? Their attraction to the girls, picking them up, their plans? Taking them home and the introduction to the house? Looking at Serge's room etc.? (and his disapproving grandmother and the effect of this?) Their taking the girls to Serge's brother's place, sexuality, their being kicked out? The search for work? The decision to stay with the girls and the bonds that grew between them? Serge and his love and support for Jeannie? Tim and his working hard for Carrie? His importance in the sequences where they were searching for work? The gum-chewing secretary, the comments on illiteracy by the officers? Their reaction to the girls' stealing? Serge stealing himself? The lyrical sequence at the beach and the potential for happiness? Their attitudes towards the girls' escort work? Their going to the hotel afterwards and clowning around? Their future - and the hopelessness of jobs? Their visiting Jeannie at the end? Rounded portraits, well portrayed? Audience identification with these ordinary boys?

15. The significance of Fred in the film? The old derelict, his alcoholism, his presence in the warehouse, his friendship with the girls, his presence with them at the beach, the bonds in the conversations with Carrie, the encounter at the railway lines, the pathos of his death and its strong impact on Carrie -her confrontation with Tony in the hotel, her following him to the hospital, her grief?

16. The harsh images confronting these young people, especially with work, the emphasis on the night, the makeshift home in the warehouse etc?

17. The contrast with the happier images: the beach, sharing the pizza, the hotel breakfast, the stall in the market etc?

18. The theme of unemployment, the picturing of the officers, the boys going the rounds, the effect and the depression of youth?

19. The themes of the generation gap, the backgrounds of the girls' families, authority figures?

20. The presentation of contemporary values, Australian values, the problems of contemporary society, the future?