Freedom (1982 film)

Freedom
Film poster
Directed by Scott Hicks
Produced by Matt Carroll
Written by John Emery
Starring Jon Blake
Jad Capelja
Cinematography Ron Johanson
Edited by Philip Reid
Production
company
South Australian Film Corporation
Endeavour Communications Corporation
Distributed by Roadshow
Release date
 1 April 1982
Running time
 102 mins
Country Australia
Language English
Box office A$157,000[1]

Freedom is a 1982 film directed by Scott Hicks, starring Jon Blake and Jad Capelja.[2]

The movie was shot in May to June 1981 in the Adelaide area. Finance was provided by the South Australian Film Corporation, which additional investment from Filmco.[3]

Scott Hick later described making the film as:

A very mixed experience. On the one hand, it was heady and exciting and intoxicating to be making your first feature film but, on the other, there were difficulties in the way the production was organised. The writer, John Emery, and I were kept separate from each other. In retrospect this was a huge blunder because the film was never totally focused in its vision, and I think that's reflected a little in the sort of schizophrenic nature of the film.[4]

Plot synopsis

Ron is a young man in his early 20s who blames everyone for getting in the way of his dreams. In order to fulfill his fantasy of driving a Porsche with the girl of his dreams, he steals a Porsche, takes off down the road and stops at a roadside eatery and meets Sally who is on her way to retrieve her baby from some foster parents. They both decide to set off together and nothing seems to go their way.

Reception

Freedom was unsuccessful at the Australian box office and failed to generate attention internationally, aside from a run at the D. W. Griffith theatre in New York City on 14th February 1985.[5] Domestically, the film grossed $157,000 in 1982, equivalent to $456,870 in 2009 dollars.[5]

Critical reviews were mixed to negative. Susie Eisenhuth, writing for The Sun-Herald, compared the film to Terrence Malick's Badlands (1973), another love on the run film.[5] She wrote that Freedom spends "too much time on cars" and too little time on its characters. Neil Jillett in The Age wrote one of the few positive reviews, stating that the film is about "the fantasies and fears of the young and unemployed", and called it "whimsical and intriguing".[5]

Home media

Freedom was released on VHS in the mid 1980s by Rigby Entertainment and was classified M15+. It was released on DVD in the 2000s by Umbrella Entertainment, but has since gone out of print. In the US, it was released on VHS by VidAmerica.

References

  1. ↑ "Australian Films at the Australian Box Office", Film Victoria Archived 9 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine. accessed 24 October 2012
  2. ↑ David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p361-362
  3. ↑ Jim Schembri, "Freedom", Australian Film 1978-1992, Oxford Uni Press, 1993 p99
  4. ↑ "Interview with Scott Hicks", Signet, 5 August 1996, 7 September 1996 accessed 18 November 2012
  5. 1 2 3 4 "Freedom Review - OzMovies". Retrieved 28 June 2017.
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