Shirley Barrett

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Some directors fear their productions will be plagued by unruly weather. Not so Shirley Barrett (Love Serenade), whose latest cinematic treat, South Solitary, is an understated romance set against the backdrop of a remote and tempestuous Tasmanian lighthouse island (actually shot in Cape Nelson, Victoria). No, Barrett feared it would be spoilt by the %u2018inappropriate%u2019 sunniness that saw its budget practically triple. %u201CI wanted it to be an austere, sombre place%u2026but I was nervous it would start to look idyllically beautiful,%u201D she explains. Fortunately, the conditions worsened, allowing Barrett to complete her period piece about, %u201CA small group of characters thrust together in adversity,%u201D or, as she aptly boils it down to, %u201CLittle people on a big rock,%u201D that could be blown off by the Roaring Forties at any moment. Turbulent climate aside, Barrett was also enamoured by the calamitous lifestyle led by lighthouse keepers. %u201CThey were happy places if it was the right combination of people,%u201D she explains, %u201Cbut small tensions could brew and erupt because there was no escape, no one else to alleviate things.%u201D Indeed, while studying old lighthouse logbooks, Barrett discovered some fascinating accounts %u2013 petty conflicts over firewood, an entire lighthouse staff being forced by their unbearably rigid head keeper to seek immediate transfer and (most alarmingly), %u201CPeople running amuck with shotguns.%u201D It seems inconceivable then that the film%u2019s protagonist, the meek but kindly Meredith (Barrett%u2019s long-time disciple, Miranda Otto), could endure such chaos. But Meredith%u2019s arrival on Barrett%u2019s fictitious island, in aid of her fastidious lighthouse keeper uncle, allowed Barrett to explore companionship. %u201CMeredith had at one point done quite well for herself,%u201D Barrett muses, %u201Cbut having had an affair with a married man, having got pregnant, having had this disastrous abortion%u2026she%u2019s so reduced in her circumstances that all she can do is be an unpaid companion for her uncle. Her time on the island is spent desperately lurching towards anything that might be a companion, even her pet lamb. She%u2019s desperate for affection and she%u2019s rattling around wildly.%u201D Although Meredith, who%u2019s %u2018adrift%u2019 at the outset, inevitably finds romance, Barrett stresses South Solitary is a %u2018slow burner%u2019, not a %u2018sparks-flying%u2019 romance. %u201CI%u2019m a big fan of romance,%u201D she says hesitantly, %u201Cbut you have to be careful with how you resolve it as it can somehow be deflating to resolve it too completely. I feel this about the Pride and Prejudice television series, which I loved, but at the end when Mr Darcy and Elizabeth are on the coach and they are kissing and there%u2019s wedding bells, somehow you feel a little abandoned, as the viewer, now that they are finally together. I didn%u2019t want to have a pat ending%u2026not that I%u2019m at all saying Pride and Prejudice has a pat ending!%u201D Ultimately, Barrett says South Solitary is about the small character incidents that offer the hope of romance and the idea that people, if forced together, can slowly come to, %u201CSome kind of enjoyment of each other%u2019s company.%u201D %u201CThat%u2019s what interested me,%u201D she says. %u201CThe small oddities that happen in life%u2026a collection of small moments that become something bigger.%u201D