The Tale of Ruby Rose

The Tale of Ruby Rose is an Australian movie, released in 1988. It is 100 minutes in length. It was written and directed by Roger Scholes and produced by Andrew Wiseman and Bryce Menzies. The cast included Melita Jurisic, Chris Haywood, Rod Zuanic, Sheila Florance, and Martyn Sanderson.

As the title indicates, the film centres on Ruby and her complex emotions. The character is based on a story told to Roger Scholes by an old woman, Mrs Miles of Mole Creek Valley. As a young woman, she had lived alone in a hut in the Highlands for four years, without knowing that her husband had died while trying to get back to her in the middle of winter. The experience traumatised her.Scholes was also interested in the nave art created by a people with mental disturbance or trauma, and its similarities with prehistoric art he studied case histories as a student in Melbourne. That is why Ruby fills notebooks with her own drawing. She is much younger than Henry, and she has been traumatised as a child. She has created her own cosmology, based on fear and observation of the natural world. She feels safe only in the day. When Henry and Gem go off trapping for days on end, she is alone with her fears in the hut. She identifies the colour white with the sun, warmth and light that is why she uses flour to make her face white. By this stage in the movie we are fully aware of Rubys mental instability and her terror of the dark. That is why her journey is so remarkable to be out after dark requires a supreme act of will. ........

Source: Wikipedia