There is something about Australian cinema that attracts me.

Away from the hustle and stress of urban conurbations worldwide Australia comes across so peaceful and desolate like a landscape painting.

Sunday Too Far Away is a classic example mixing those elements that are common to all Australian 'New Wave' cinema of the era.

The screenplay is simple. Working men work hard and play hard. Here the subject is sheep shearing. Not the most elaborate of subjects to film but it works.

We see men work at a farm for several weeks, some getting drunk in their spare time.

The main character is Foley (Jack Thompson). Your classic grog drinking Australian from the outback! A hard worker, fighter, big drinker.

The film has moments of comedy, tragedy when one of the group dies and is collected by an undertaker with a Ute 4x4.

The owner of the farm clashes with the shearers leading to an example of clashing politics, strike action and 'scab' workers brought in to break the strike leading to a fight sequence in the town bar.

However this is towards the end of the film and you don't sense a political broadcast like a Ken Loach film for example.

The film was a low budget production by the then fledgling South Australian Film Corporation and was seen at the Cannes Film Festival.

My review title is somewhat of a misnomer because the film is set in 1955 and Australia had the pound as currency!

SUNDAY TOO FAR AWAY is a matter-of-fact drama from Australia, that is perhaps one of the most Australian-feeling films I've watched. The good old boy Jack Thompson plays a sheep shearer who organises a number of his fellow workers into a strike at the conditions imposed upon them by wealthy landowners; a stand-off ensues. This is a film that manages to cram in many of the cliches of Australian cinema, from rugged bar-room brawling to sun-belted landscapes, without making them seem tired. Thompson and his fellow actors give naturalistic performances throughout, and the film's realism is undoubtedly high. The story isn't quite the most exciting or compelling out there, but it does the job.

Here's a film that feels like it doesn't have a single false note. From the famous opening scene when the hero falls asleep at the wheel and the car rolls over, to his laugh at the end when he realises he's been beaten, this film says just about everything there is to say about shearing - the job that is the main focus here. Now, a film about shearers in the Australian outback may not be everyone's idea of pleasant viewing, but it is much more than that: the shearer's work starts to resemble any job that slowly eats away at the life of the person doing it, even if that person still feels pride in his work. Great moments of humour - e.g. characters like tim and the cocky, pathos (old Garth, and mystery, like the girl interested to watch the shearers, or the cook with a drinking habit and violent streak. The song the films starts and ends with is great too, with suitably melancholic lyrics:

The roads I didn't take I bid them all so long While Sunday warms my blood and cools my mind And the dreams I thought were true Are now moss beneath my footprints