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Crossing Tracks - Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Kidnapped
Title:
Crossing Tracks - Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Kidnapped
NFSA ID
601507
Year
1999
Warnings
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are advised that the following program may contain images and/or audio of deceased persons
Melanie (Alyssa McClelland) is in the back of the vehicle as it speeds along the road. The three youths who have kidnapped her bicker between themselves, having landed in even hotter water with the impulsive decision to take a prisoner. The car gets bogged and Melanie sees her chance for escape and takes it, but is recaptured. Willy (Sam O’Dell) attempts to rape Melanie, but Perry (Jie Pittman) stops him.
Summary by Romaine Moreton.
The potential for full-blown violence towards the kidnap victim is interrupted by the humanity of one of the captors and co-conspirators. The compassion shown towards Melanie (Alyssa McClelland) in this scene may be the first time the character has experienced such a gesture. The two characters Melanie and Perry (Jie Pittman) draw out qualities in each other that are usually suppressed in their everyday environment.
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning Synopsis
A short film based on a story by Archie Weller, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning is the story of a robbery gone wrong, an unplanned kidnapping and its consequences. A young white girl is kidnapped by three youths – two black, one white.
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning Curator's notes
Saturday Night, Sunday Morning almost qualifies as a case of Stockholm Syndrome, with the relationship between the kidnap victim and the kidnapper Perry (Jie Pittman) depicted as a romantic one. Melanie (Alyssa McClelland), the daughter of a single parent, seems adrift, when she is suddenly caught up in the drama of a kidnapping. The character Perry prevents Willy (Sam O’Dell) from raping her, and for this she is thankful. The empathy shared by Perry and Melanie is framed as a possible romance that disrupts the relationship between the two cousins, Perry and Elvis (Luke Carroll). The film offers few answers or a resolution as to what the experience means to Melanie, and in the end what is presented is perhaps a possibility of characters trapped in an experience from which all are seeking some form of liberation.
Other films in the AFC Indigenous Branch drama initiative Crossing Tracks (1999) are Harry’s War and Wind.
Notes by Romaine Moreton
Production company
Core Original
Producer
Pauline Clague
Director
Rima Tamou
Writers
Archie Weller, Rima Tamou
Acknowledgements
Produced with the assistance of the Indigenous Branch of the Australian Film Commission
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.