The Australian film industry has over the last few decades produced a number of haunting, poetic films, quite different from the standard Hollywood output. Examples include "Walkabout", "Picnic at Hanging Rock", the lesser-known but excellent "Celia" and the more recent "Ten Canoes". "Opal Dream" is another in this tradition; as in "Celia" the main character is a nine-year-old girl.
The film is set in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy, here disguised under the fictitious name of Lightning Ridge, and centres on the family of opal miner Rex Williamson. Some on this board have labelled the family "dysfunctional", but this does not seem an accurate description. Rex and his wife Annie are loving and affectionate parents to their children Ashmol and Kellyanne, and Ashmol seems a normal, likable eleven-year-old lad. The problem lies with his younger sister Kellyanne, a shy, withdrawn child who finds it difficult to make friends. To compensate for her lack of playmates she has invented two imaginary friends, Pobby (male) and Dingan (female).
Many children go through a phase of having an imaginary friend- I remember my younger sister inventing a boy called John Ted- but Kellyanne's case is rather different. Even at the age of five or six my sister was well aware in her heart of hearts that John Ted was a fantasy rather than a real person, and by the time she was nine he had long been forgotten. Kellyanne, however, has quite convinced herself that Pobby and Dingan are real, and has retained her belief in the reality of their existence long after most children have waved their imaginary friends goodbye.
Rex and Annie are concerned about their daughter's fantasies, but pretend to believe in the existence of Pobby and Dingan to humour her, and one day Rex pretends to take them to his opal diggings. When he returns, however, Kellyanne becomes convinced that he has left them behind and insists that he take her back to look for them. Rex does so, but while looking for the imaginary pair he inadvertently strays onto another miner's claim, which leads to him being arrested by the police and charged with "ratting" (illegal mining). As ratting is regarded as the most heinous sin an opal miner can commit, this leads to Rex and his family being ostracised by their neighbours. Kellyanne falls ill, partly because of stress caused by the family's situation and partly because of grief over the loss of her friends.
There are parallels between Kellyanne's situation and that of her parents and the wider community of Lightning Ridge. She is living in a world of make-believe and so, in a sense, are they. The opal miners are not employed by a big mining corporation, but are self-employed prospectors. Each miner has his own jealously guarded individual claim, which explains why "ratters" are regarded with such contempt. They have been lured to the town by dreams of wealth, but in most cases these prove to be as illusory as Pobby and Dingan. (Hence the title "Opal Dream"). Until about a year previously, Rex and Annie ran a pub in Melbourne, but abandoned that life to try their luck in the opal fields. The fact that the Williamsons are outsiders makes many of their neighbours ill-disposed to them even before the "ratting" allegations, and there is a suggestion that Kellyanne's emotional problems may be connected to her sudden uprooting from one environment to another.
I did not like the ending, which I felt amounted to a retreat into tear-jerking sentimentality and avoided, rather than resolving, the tensions and conflicts inherent in the plot. That, however, would be my only complaint. The adults all play their parts well, and the two child actors, Christian Byers and Sapphire Boyce, were excellent. Sapphire (interesting that the leading actress in a film about jewel mining should herself be named after a jewel) deserves a special mention. Most excellent performances from child actors come in films where they are required to play lively, outgoing youngsters- a good recent example is Anna Sophia Robb's performance in "Bridge to Terabithia", a film I did not otherwise much care for. To have played an introverted, withdrawn child like Kellyanne must have been more difficult. The film's haunting atmosphere is also heightened by the photography of the South Australian desert landscapes, made to seem even more barren and otherworldly by the slagheaps from the mineral workings. "Opal Dream" is very enjoyable as a sensitive and poetic exploration of a difficult childhood. 7/10
The film is set in the opal mining town of Coober Pedy, here disguised under the fictitious name of Lightning Ridge, and centres on the family of opal miner Rex Williamson. Some on this board have labelled the family "dysfunctional", but this does not seem an accurate description. Rex and his wife Annie are loving and affectionate parents to their children Ashmol and Kellyanne, and Ashmol seems a normal, likable eleven-year-old lad. The problem lies with his younger sister Kellyanne, a shy, withdrawn child who finds it difficult to make friends. To compensate for her lack of playmates she has invented two imaginary friends, Pobby (male) and Dingan (female).
Many children go through a phase of having an imaginary friend- I remember my younger sister inventing a boy called John Ted- but Kellyanne's case is rather different. Even at the age of five or six my sister was well aware in her heart of hearts that John Ted was a fantasy rather than a real person, and by the time she was nine he had long been forgotten. Kellyanne, however, has quite convinced herself that Pobby and Dingan are real, and has retained her belief in the reality of their existence long after most children have waved their imaginary friends goodbye.
Rex and Annie are concerned about their daughter's fantasies, but pretend to believe in the existence of Pobby and Dingan to humour her, and one day Rex pretends to take them to his opal diggings. When he returns, however, Kellyanne becomes convinced that he has left them behind and insists that he take her back to look for them. Rex does so, but while looking for the imaginary pair he inadvertently strays onto another miner's claim, which leads to him being arrested by the police and charged with "ratting" (illegal mining). As ratting is regarded as the most heinous sin an opal miner can commit, this leads to Rex and his family being ostracised by their neighbours. Kellyanne falls ill, partly because of stress caused by the family's situation and partly because of grief over the loss of her friends.
There are parallels between Kellyanne's situation and that of her parents and the wider community of Lightning Ridge. She is living in a world of make-believe and so, in a sense, are they. The opal miners are not employed by a big mining corporation, but are self-employed prospectors. Each miner has his own jealously guarded individual claim, which explains why "ratters" are regarded with such contempt. They have been lured to the town by dreams of wealth, but in most cases these prove to be as illusory as Pobby and Dingan. (Hence the title "Opal Dream"). Until about a year previously, Rex and Annie ran a pub in Melbourne, but abandoned that life to try their luck in the opal fields. The fact that the Williamsons are outsiders makes many of their neighbours ill-disposed to them even before the "ratting" allegations, and there is a suggestion that Kellyanne's emotional problems may be connected to her sudden uprooting from one environment to another.
I did not like the ending, which I felt amounted to a retreat into tear-jerking sentimentality and avoided, rather than resolving, the tensions and conflicts inherent in the plot. That, however, would be my only complaint. The adults all play their parts well, and the two child actors, Christian Byers and Sapphire Boyce, were excellent. Sapphire (interesting that the leading actress in a film about jewel mining should herself be named after a jewel) deserves a special mention. Most excellent performances from child actors come in films where they are required to play lively, outgoing youngsters- a good recent example is Anna Sophia Robb's performance in "Bridge to Terabithia", a film I did not otherwise much care for. To have played an introverted, withdrawn child like Kellyanne must have been more difficult. The film's haunting atmosphere is also heightened by the photography of the South Australian desert landscapes, made to seem even more barren and otherworldly by the slagheaps from the mineral workings. "Opal Dream" is very enjoyable as a sensitive and poetic exploration of a difficult childhood. 7/10