The Year My Voice Broke

Infobox Film
name = The Year My Voice Broke


image_size =
caption = Theatrical release poster
director = John Duigan
producer =
writer = John Duigan
narrator =
starring = Noah Taylor
Loene Carmen
music =
cinematography =Geoff Burton
editing = Neil Thumpston
distributor = Avenue Pictures Productions
released = 1987
runtime = 103 min.
country = AUS
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by = Flirting
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0094347

"The Year My Voice Broke" is a 1987 film by director John Duigan. It stars Noah Taylor and Loene Carmen. It won the 1987 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film. It was the first in a projected trilogy of films centered around the coming of age experiences of an awkward Australian boy, based on the childhood of writer/director Jim Duigan. Although the trilogy never came to fruition, it was followed by a sequel, "Flirting".

Plot

In the 1960s, Danny (Noah Taylor), an underdeveloped, socially awkward adolescent, falls in love with his best friend Freya (Loene Carmen) in a small town in rural New South Wales, Australia. Unfortunately, her heart is set on Trevor (Ben Mendelsohn), a high school rugby star, larrikin and petty criminal who shelters Danny from the cruelty of other children at school. The film is comprised of a series of interconnected segments narrated by Danny who recollects how he and Freya grew apart over the course of one year. Shortly after sleeping with Freya, Trevor steals a car for a joyride and is arrested and sent to juvenile detention; it is while he's away that Freya reveals to Danny that she's pregnant. Danny offers to marry her and claim that the child is his, but Freya refuses, saying that she wouldn't even marry Trevor. Meanwhile, intrigued by a gift left to Freya by an elderly friend of theirs who recently died--a locket engraved "SEA"-- Danny begins to investigate the town's past, and discovers a lone tombstone in the cemetery bearing those initials, belonging to a "Sara Elizabeth Ames," who died days after Freya was born. Through inquiries at the local pub, Danny learns that Sara was something of the town prostitute years ago, and that she was Freya's biological mother, who died trying to give birth herself at home without the assistance of a doctor or midwife.

Trevor breaks out of detention, steals another car, and severely wounds a store clerk in the progress of an armed robbery. Trevor returns to town long enough to reunite with Freya and learn that she's pregnant. Trevor tells Freya he has to leave town again, and that she should entrust herself and their child to Danny. The police arrive at Trevor's hiding place; Danny warns him, and Trevor is able to get a head start, but the police run his car off the road during the course of the pursuit, and Trevor dies. In her grief, Freya suffers a miscarriage and nearly bleeds to death until Danny finds her and takes her to the hospital. Hesitantly, Danny reveals the identity of Freya's mother to her. Realising the stigma now hanging over her, due to her mother's reputation and her own pregnancy, Freya decides to run away to the city. Danny forces her to take his life's savings to support herself and accompanies her to the train station to see her off, where they pledge their friendship to one another and promise to keep in touch. Later that day Danny travels to their favourite hangout spot and carves Freya's, Trevor's, and his name into a rock, as his adult self informs the audience that he will never see Freya again.

Danny's history continues in the film "Flirting" (1991).

Music

The main theme used in the film is The Lark Ascending by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. At a 2005 special event screening in Sydney, director John Duigan stated he chose the piece as he felt it complimented Danny's adolescent yearning.

External links

*imdb title|id=0094347|title=The Year My Voice Broke
* [http://colsearch.nfsa.afc.gov.au/nfsa/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;group=;groupequals=;holdingType=;page=0;parentid=;query=Number%3A141384;querytype=;rec=0;resCount=10 The Year My Voice Broke at the National Film and Sound Archive]