From the Tropics to the Snow (1964)
- Directed by
- Jack Lee, Richard Mason
- Genre
- documentary film
- Country
- Australia
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
This short documentary uses multiple narrators and a tongue in cheek style to promote Australia as a destination for migrants and tourists. It shows different regions of the country from tropical areas to snowy landscapes.
lightheartedplayfulwittysatiricalupbeatreflectivelivelyinformative
What happens
From the Tropics to the Snow is a 1964 Australian short documentary film. It was one of the best known Australian films of the 1960s. It was produced under the auspices of the Commonwealth Film Unit (CFU), later reincorporated as Film Australia. It was co-directed by Jack Lee and Richard (Dick) Mason, and featured Reg Livermore (in his first film role) as one of the 'narrators'. One of the regular duties of the CFU at this time was the production of short films that were purpose-made for overseas distribution and were intended to promote Australia as an attractive destination for migrants and tourists. From the Tropics to the Snow marked a significant break with the traditional style of such features, and is noted for its subversive and satirical approach to its subject. Rather than using the stilted, authoritative single-voice narration that was typical of such 'promotion documentaries' at the time, Mason and Lee opted for a strikingly reflexive approach, using a lively (and frequently tongue-in-cheek) multi-voice narration, which is introduced through the dramatic device of a production planning meeting between the film's Producer-in-Chief (Alexander Archdale), the director (Alastair Smart) and the screenwriter (Livermore). This allowed the film to become an ironic critique of itself, humorously examining the mechanics of "documentary" film construction, and the competing pressures and choices that faced filmmakers when creating such films. It also gently parodied Lee and Mason's own situation as "young turks" charged with turning out what were in essence "production-line" propaganda films for a hidebound government department. The film won one of the two Gold Medals given out at the 1965 Australian Film Institute Awards while winning the Travel Award. It also won the Australian National Travel Association's Award for Travel Films Jedda Award, the Kodak Award for Best Colour Photography medallion and the Australian Cinematographers' Society Awards plaque at the ceremony. Colin Bennett from the Age wrote "After years and years of making cliche-ridden P.R. films about Australia, the Commonwealth Film Unit and the National Film Board have finally plucked up courage to "take the mickey" out of cliche-ridden P.R. films about Australia." He goes on to say "This short film, then, is not only enjoyable. It is a courageous effort to come from an official unit in the sphere of hidebound Australian film production." The Sydney Morning Herald says "it is a crisp departure from the norm, and a clever way of overcoming the diffulculty of fitting "everything about Australia" (we-ell, nearly everything!) into its 28 brief compass of 28 minutes." When it aired on SBS in 1999 Robin Oliver in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote "The set-up is diabolically corny, a jokey film about a film being made about Australia, a point laboured in the opening credits." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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The Naked Bunyip (1970)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.