Winner of the 2001 Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Short Fiction Film, this brief but powerful drama about prison sex and intimacy is well worth a view. Homoerotic without being pornographic, touching but not sentimental, it shows the love that unexpectedly develops between a young prison inmate and an older "lifer."
Many people will no doubt be turned off by the idea of a physical relationship between the two, but I was impressed that such a short film (24 minutes) could believably convey a sense of a bartered relationship between two nominally heterosexual men, a pairing that begins as bleak exploitation and turns into something more. That the film captures their tender feelings while still keeping a strong eye on the dangers and sordidness of their imprisonment, with moments of humor and terror to boot, is a tribute to a good script, fine directing (by Rachel Ward, to my surprise) and to the equally fine acting, especially the terrific performance by Tony Martin as the older con.
For the record, American viewers may have occasional trouble deciphering the dialogue, as the "down-under" accents are a bit thick at times.
