Rural Australia swept up in ‘Little Tornadoes’

By Renee Lou Dallow

Set in Rural Australia in a town named Tocumwal this film is a gentle homage to family life on the land. 

Life in the country can be slow. Interminably slow and this film emphasises the fact. 

The film begins with Leo, a young factory worker with two kids, driving home from work at the factory. It’s a long slow drive and we get to see lots of scenery. There’s a note on the kitchen table. His wife has left him. She has left a red dress hanging on the line. Leo’s Italian workmate, Tony, empathising with Leo’s depression suggests that Leo give his sister, Maria, a job cooking meals and looking after the kids. Maria has started telling the story before we meet her.

“Men don’t talk here, but in Sicily the men sing on the farms, at work and at home too.” Drawn to the flying ducks in the kitchen she says that she dreams of her own house and family. When Leo makes a move, however, Maria realises that life on the land is not for her either.

Actually it is Maria’s lightness of being that has changed things. Finally Leo’s father finally eats the pasta Leo has left for him in the fridge, Leo finally burns the red dress and Maria finally leaves for the city.

Starring Mark Leonard Winter and Silvia Colloca this is a slow moving film with some lovely scenery but not much happening. Maybe that’s the point.

★★★