by Clarke Fountain
synopsis
In this astonishingly inexpensively produced ($12,000 Australian) feature by first-time director Lara Dunston, a Boy and a Girl (Annabel Stokes and Simon Hamm) are drawn together by their obsession with discovering the West, a mythologically rustic, romantic and primeval land. They are inspired by the country-and western tunes they both love, and the feature shows them developing a desire to travel through Australia in search of this imaginary land. They are interviewed extensively before they set out, and the film follows them in their ultimately unfulfilled and impossible search. Eventually, they discover that the West they are looking for is not to be found in the wilds of Australia, but in themselves.
