Film Techniques In Lucky Miles

In many reviews Lucky Miles has been rated 4 out of 5 stars. Good morning/ afternoon the selection panel of the 2016 film festival. Most Australian films portray the same repetitive representations of what Australia is. Many other Australian films have displayed the typical dangerous, but yet stunning outback scenery of Australia. However no other film has given such a variety and accuracy of the representation of the Australian landscape like Lucky Miles has. This film should be included in the 2016 international Australian film festival. Lucky Miles is an Australian film created in 2007 and directed by Michael James Rowland. This film is inspired by several true stories and has taken a different approach to the story of refugees arriving

illegally onto the shores of Australia. The plot of lucky miles is an Indonesian fishing boat manned by people smugglers, who abandoned a group of Iraqi and Cambodian men and a remote part of the North Western Australian coast. This film has shown the accuracy in the representations of us Australians, landscapes, and also mate ship of our country.
The representations of the Australian landscape are both fair and accurate.

The film Lucky Miles has demonstrated many of Australia’s scenery starting off with the beaches along the coast of Australia leading on the sand dunes and desert with shrubs and red dirt. This is then followed by rough terrain in the middle of the desert with rocky slopes, surroundings of dead plants, signs of no life. Throughout the film the landscape appeared to have dry, hot and harsh conditions making survival a challenge. This is seen in the film when the fisherman was found by Yousiff Al-Samer and Arun passed out from dehydration after running from the coast line after the boat had exploded and sunk. With extreme heat in the desert. This film displayed the accuracy of how harsh the Australian landscape can be by showing the asylum seekers very delusional, this is seen when they have all separated and they are stumbling and talking to themselves while

walking.
Due to the harsh conditions of the Australian desert little to no water is around. This is an accurate representation of Australia’s extreme drought conditions. In the film when the three asylum seekers had climbed over the rocky slope/mountain and they found the water hole it was considered a miracle as they ran down yelling and screaming with joy. Further along in the film when the asylum seekers all ended up in the abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere has showed a typical stereotype of having people living in the middle of nowhere but it had a twist of it being abandoned showing that no one in these days really live in the middle of nowhere anymore, people have migrated to the cities. These days the desert is not very liveable but it is still apart of Australian society. The film Lucky Miles has used a variety of camera angles and landscapes to display the many beautiful but harsh landscapes that Australia has.
The asylum seekers in the film Lucky Miles have been represented as being determined, skilled and looking for a better life.

The asylum seekers have the education and survival skills to survive in middle of the outback whereas Australians do not and have not been equipped with those skills. This was stated in the film at the end when three Australian men were sitting at the pub wearing singlets and a flannel, a typical stereotype of what Australian men wear. The three men were having drinks and watching the news about the refugees surviving in the desert, one of the pub men said “____________________________”. This has represented that men in our country wouldn’t be able survive on our land with limited food and little water in the middle of the desert. This demonstrates how determined the refugees to survive in Australia rather than being deported back to their countries. The skills that one asylum seekers, Yousiff Al-Samer showed during the film was how determined he was to get the run down, broke car to work. In order for him and the other two men to survive he used his engineering skills to be able to get the car running. The three asylum seekers ability to survive in the Australian land, desert and a place where ‘real’ Australians live means that these men have deserved the legitimate title of Australians compared to actual Australians who won’t have the skills and education to be able to survive in our

lands.