>If you want to record the sound of a train, you don't need to lay down on the tracks and let it >pass over you. Simply place the mini-disc recorder on the tracks and press record. Then move >yourself well clear of the tracks while the train goes by. This is a much safer way to record the train sound.
Yes, that would be the rational way to record the sound, but most creative people - whether they be musicians, actors or singers (even visual artists) - tend not to think rationally, and usually act on impulse! This first scene immediately established the character of Tommy as being someone so engrossed in capturing everyday sounds around him, which served as inspiration for his compositions (whether you liked them or not) that he really lived in another world - a fact that his family knew only too well. It took the death of his sister to bring him back to eventual reality.
I felt unsatisfied after seeing the film in the theatre, and decided that the script was to blame - there were too many gaps and loose ends. It may have been quite a good script to begin with, but suffered from too much rewriting during its unusually long production period - which changed its focus - and a Final Cut which reduced the length of the film from nearly three hours to a mere 105 minutes was too savage. A two-hour film would not have been overlong by today's standards, and would've shown that several characters were originally more important and better-realised. (Artists of the calibre of Frank Gallacher and Kerry Armstrong do not appear in 'minor' roles!)
One of Melbourne's senior film critics - who's seen a film or two in his time - recently described OPD as a major work "... (but) the exhilarating One Perfect Day - one of the most stylish films ever made in (Australia) - did not (receive the plaudits it deserved)." When reviewing it on release in February he gave it 4½ stars out of 5.
It will be interesting to see how it's received in the US.
Jan
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