Spirits of the air, gremlins of the clouds

Australia, 1988

Film
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Felix Crabtree (Michael Lake) and his sister Betty (Rhys Davis) live in a dust blown shack admist a vast desert. Felix is a wheelchair bound “Dr. Strangelove” character, obsessed with flying, while Betty is paranoid, child-like, living in a world of her own, surrounded by religous relics and obsessed by the past. When a weatherbeaten fugitive named Smith (“The Norm”) staggers towards the homestead and collapses, Felix and Betty revive him. Felix learns that he and Smith share a desire to escape - Smith from his hunters and Felix from the dusty world he is forced to inhabit. They begin to build a flying machine to carry them to a new world but Felix soon realises that it is not just physical difficulties confining them to the desert.

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Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

Alex Proyas

co-producer

Alex Proyas

Andrew McPhail

production company

Meaningful Eye Contact Film

MMA Films

Pro-image

Duration

01:30:00:00

Production places
Australia
Production dates
1988

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

304291

Language

English

Audience classification

MA

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Wikidata

Q7578083

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