SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY (1975) Sunburnt Screens #3 Blu-ray
Director: Ken Hannam
Umbrella Entertainment

Jack Thompson turns in a star-making performance in SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY, the most extraordinary film you will ever see about sheep-shearing, on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment.

When Foley (Thompson) returns to the Outback, his friends think he has struck out in the fish markets of Brisbane; but the self-proclaimed champion sheep-sheerer is a man with a plan: to save up enough money to buy a racing horse. Although he has already signed a contract, former buddy Tim King (Max Cullen, MY BRILLIANT CAREER) has become a contractor but is having trouble rounding up men for a job at the ranch of Dawson (Phillip Ross). King fools Foley and some of the regulars into thinking the job will short enough for them to keep their other contracts. When they find out the truth, however, the potential bonus per hundred sheep is enough to keep them on. Sharing a bunk with Old Garth (Reg Lye, A CHALLENGE FOR ROBIN HOOD), Foley is disgusted that the one-time legend has degenerated into a shaky-handed drunk. More disturbing, however, is that however prolific he is in his rankings above the regulars Tom (SNAPSHOT's Robert Bruning), Basher (YOUNG WARRIORS' Jerry Thomas), and Ugly (PICTURE SHOW MAN's John Ewart) or the newbies – including loner Beresford (STONES OF DEATH's Sean Scully) and apprentice Michael Simpson (MAD DOG MORGAN's Gregory Apps), the latter the very portrait of an Aussie ocher wearing his Sunday suit for work – he is gradually being overtaken by loner Arthur Black (STORK's Peter Cummins)

Based on authentic recollections of the 1956 shearers' strike – screenwriter John Dingwall would later script BUDDIES about Queenland gem miners – SUNDAY TO FAR AWAY is not only a convincing historical portrait but also a fascinating psychological character study. However much Foley puts himself above his comrades, he cannot help but see himself in relation to them, repulsed at the thought of ending up like Old Garth, resenting Beresford's standoffishness without acknowledging his own – speculating that he must be queer – and having already written off Black as a loser before the man shared something of his troubled private life. As his totals are overtaken and Old Garth passes away after Foley snaps at him, Foley's own sense of self begins to erode – even an episode involving Dawson's young daughter (Lisa Peers, ALISON'S BIRTHDAY) does not go the expected way of a randy sexual dalliance – ending with Foley feeling beaten down even before the strike is announced ("What do you think," asks Tom, "I don't," he replies). The ending scenes involving the strike and a futile bar brawl is in keeping with the film's statement that the strike had less to do with the loss of bonuses but the "bloody insult" of their treatment. Although an auspicious feature debut for TV director Ken Hannam, he only directed four more features – including the underrated sleeper SUMMERFIELD – before moving to England where he worked primarily in episodic television, with the 1981 miniseries of DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS a highlight.

Although a winner of three Australian Film Institute awards, SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY was hard to see in the United States until it popped up on Criterion's streaming channel. In its native Australia, the film had a fullscreen DVD release in 2001 followed by a remastered edition from Umbrella in 2018. Umbrella's Sunburnt Screens series Blu-ray is not derived from the same master, boasting here that it has been restored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Taking into account seventies film stock and that the film is entirely shot on location, this is a nice-looking transfer with vibrant outback greens, golden sunshine, and muddy browns with fluctuations in overall balance of lighting and warm or cool bias coming from the changeable weather (see the extras for discussion and footage of the cast and crew adapting to sudden rainstorms). The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is conservative, opening up the original mono mix – also included as a lossless 2.0 track only accessible via remote – presumably a concession to digital screening and streaming venues. English HoH subtitles are also available, but the accents were not that unintelligible this time around.

Ported over from the DVD is "The Making of SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY" (23:33) which is not a contemporary assembly but an actual vintage documentary probably shown in film schools and possible in place of shorts theatrically. It understandably "makes a production" of a film crew shooting on location – even the Outback pub was built in the basement of the local town hall – with Hannam stressing teamwork, the talent and ingenuity of his crew, Dingwall's attention to the period and how the production followed suit, and the search for a lead and a cast with chemistry – Thompson was actually the only cast member who actually had experience as a sheep-shearer a few years after the strike having set out on his own as a youth – and a look at shooting in the shearing shed, filming knee-deep in rain and mud, and staging the final brawl scene.

Thompson appears in a 2019 conversation (47:53) hosted by actor David Wenham (300) in which he discusses his experience as a sheep-shearer and background on the strike, how authentic Dingwall's screenplay seemed to him, and memories of the shoot (including Lye deciding to "play" a left-handed shearer so that he would be turned away from the camera). The disc closes out with archival footage from the 1975 premiere (1:53), a stills gallery (5:51), and the film's theatrical trailer (3:30). The cover is reversible with the inside losing the ratings sticker but also sacrificing the back cover copy for poster artwork. (Eric Cotenas)

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