The Back of Beyond

The Back of Beyond 1954 is a featurelength awardwinning Australian documentary film produced and directed by John Heyer for the Shell Film Unit. In terms of breadth of distribution, awards garnered, and critical response, it is Heyers most successful film. It is also, arguably, Australias most successful documentary in 2006 it was included in a book titled 100 Greatest Films of Australian Cinema, with Bill Caske writing that it is perhaps our Australias national cinemas most well known best kept secret.

In simple terms, the film follows a typical journey made by Tom Kruse, from Marree to Birdsville, some 325 miles away, showing the various people he met along the Track and the sorts of obstacles he faced. In fact, sometimes described as a docudrama, the film was closely scripted it comprises a number of reenactments and a lost children story, rather than chronicling an actual trip.Nonetheless, many of the people featured in the film were reallife bush characters. They include the bushmancummailman Tom Kruse Bejah Dervish, the Baloch camel driver who fought the desert by compass and by Koran William Henry Butler, Kruses recordplaying companion Jack the Dogger who kills wild dingoes and old Joe the Aboriginal rainmaker. Australian Screen curator, Lauren Williams, suggests that the film can be read like a collection of travelling vignettes along the Birdsville Track, embracing the experiences of these people and the isolated nevernever land they occupy. ........

Source: Wikipedia