DRIVE
Director Bronwyn Purvis, Telen Rodwell
Countries Australia
Duration 55 min
Synopsis
Young men are dying in high speed, single vehicle crashes, crumpled in metal coffins, on lonely rural roads. Why do the die? Why do they live? Speed is hypnotic. Risk is freedom. Cars can become weapons. The biggest killer of young men in Australia is car crashes. The state with the highest rate of road fatalities is the island of Tasmania. DRIVE is a film about Australian cultural identity. It is about the rites of passage young men face on their journey to adulthood - gaining a driver’s license and the legal right to drink alcohol. Scattered across the picturesque North West Coast of Tasmania are memorials to those who have died on the roads. These sites are often well maintained over many years by those who can’t forget. Shrouded in the grief that’s tearing communities apart are the young men’s peers, still grappling with their own future and identity. Lincoln, 24, regains consciousness, his car ripped to pieces around him, to hear the sound of his passenger’s final blood curdling scream from the seat beside him. Justin, 22, a drunken passenger in a car driven too fast by a drunk driver is thrown to his death. Aaron, 19, battles his fear of the juvenile justice system with drugs, booze and intravenous injections of break fluid and Boden, 19 trades his skate board for a mates car and a drunken, speeding death, leaving behind the love of his new born son. On the verge of manhood and the throbbing break-horse-power of first cars Brad, 16, and his mates race headlong into danger above the four wheels of their skateboards- their lives intersect with the stories of the young men who didn’t survive their risk taking, who didn’t make it to manhood. What does the future hold for the families, friends and sons that are left behind? For Brad and his crew? What purpose and guidance, what accessible hero’s does our culture offer young men? Picturesque Tasmania collides with a darker realism of every young man’s struggle to understand what’s inside him. Barren rural poverty, the wild ocean winds of the roaring forties and small industrial towns permeate the landscape. DRIVE is the latest of Big hART’s award winning projects. Engaging young men on the margins of their rural communities with camera, studio and microphone as a sounding board for their ideas. Projects create outcomes for participants as well as community volunteers and partners, building capacity, resilience and sustainability. Alongside the Drive documentary an interactive website with over 60 short films takes you further into the Tasmanian landscape, the characters and the questions our culture really needs to be asking.
Young men are dying in high speed, single vehicle crashes, crumpled in metal coffins, on lonely rural roads. Why do the die? Why do they live? Speed is hypnotic. Risk is freedom. Cars can become weapons. The biggest killer of young men in Australia is car crashes. The state with the highest rate of road fatalities is the island of Tasmania. DRIVE is a film about Australian cultural identity. It is about the rites of passage young men face on their journey to adulthood - gaining a driver’s license and the legal right to drink alcohol. Scattered across the picturesque North West Coast of Tasmania are memorials to those who have died on the roads. These sites are often well maintained over many years by those who can’t forget. Shrouded in the grief that’s tearing communities apart are the young men’s peers, still grappling with their own future and identity. Lincoln, 24, regains consciousness, his car ripped to pieces around him, to hear the sound of his passenger’s final blood curdling scream from the seat beside him. Justin, 22, a drunken passenger in a car driven too fast by a drunk driver is thrown to his death. Aaron, 19, battles his fear of the juvenile justice system with drugs, booze and intravenous injections of break fluid and Boden, 19 trades his skate board for a mates car and a drunken, speeding death, leaving behind the love of his new born son. On the verge of manhood and the throbbing break-horse-power of first cars Brad, 16, and his mates race headlong into danger above the four wheels of their skateboards- their lives intersect with the stories of the young men who didn’t survive their risk taking, who didn’t make it to manhood. What does the future hold for the families, friends and sons that are left behind? For Brad and his crew? What purpose and guidance, what accessible hero’s does our culture offer young men? Picturesque Tasmania collides with a darker realism of every young man’s struggle to understand what’s inside him. Barren rural poverty, the wild ocean winds of the roaring forties and small industrial towns permeate the landscape. DRIVE is the latest of Big hART’s award winning projects. Engaging young men on the margins of their rural communities with camera, studio and microphone as a sounding board for their ideas. Projects create outcomes for participants as well as community volunteers and partners, building capacity, resilience and sustainability. Alongside the Drive documentary an interactive website with over 60 short films takes you further into the Tasmanian landscape, the characters and the questions our culture really needs to be asking.