Elyne Mitchell's literary classic about a spirited, magnificent
young stallion named Thowra and the single-minded high country horseman
(Russell Crowe) who seeks to dominate him. Winner of Best Feature
Film at the 1994 Chicago International Children's Film Festival,
The Silver Brumby has received unanimous praise from film critics
and audiences around the world. Shot in majestic locations around
Mount Hotham and Dinner Plain, The Silver Brumby beautifully evokes
the spirit of wildness and freedom of Mitchell's classic. - acmi.net.au
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A superbly crafted family film for animal lovers, "The Silver
Brumby" should earn solid coin during school vacations everywhere
and have a long video life.
Pic is based on a book written in the 1950s by a single mother
for her teenage daughter, and the filmmakers have retained the original
period, although this is really a timeless story of the life of
a legendary wild horse (or brumby).
Elyne Mitchell's story is inspired by real events occurring in
the spectacularly beautiful Victorian High Country where she lives
with her daughter.
However, Mitchell embellishes the truth for dramatic effect as
she tells of a silver brumby stallion who quickly learns the ways
of survival in the wild and who eventually replaces his father as
leader of a pack of wild horses that roams the mountains.
Simple tale has the Man (Russell Crowe), a mountain horseman, coveting
the magnificent silver stallion and trying to capture it. Later,
he pays a large sum of money for a mare, which the stallion later
rescues from captivity. In revenge , the Man and a tracker set out
to capture the stallion once and for all, and yarn ends as the stuff
of legend, with the silver brumby now a ghost horse that haunts
the mountain ranges.
Most of the film is taken up with magnificently staged and photographed
footage of the horses in their natural environment. Filming took
place over a year around Mount Hotham and Dinner Plain in Victoria,
and cinematographer Mark Gilfedder has breathtakingly captured the
rugged beauty of the High Country. Major kudos are clearly due horse
trainer Evanne Chesson.
The human actors have less to do but acquit themselves well. Russell
Crowe, in a very different role from the one he essayed in "Romper
Stomper," is excellent as the tenacious bushman. Caroline Goodall
brings sensitivity to the role of the lonely woman, and Ami Daemion
is charming as her strong-willed daughter.
Director and co-writer John Tatoulis (whose previous feature was
the underrated private eye thriller "In Too Deep") sensibly
doesn't try to beef up the uncomplicated story with contrived narrative.
There are thrilling scenes, not least a stunning helicopter shot
that reveals the stallion and the men hunting it down galloping
straight toward a cliff.
The unusual but strikingly apt music score by Tassos Ioannides
is a major asset. All other tech credits are excellent. - David
Stratton, Variety.
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SILVER BRUMBY, THE DVD From urbancinefile
Based on Australian novelist Elyne Mitchell's children's book of
the same name, The Silver Brumby is a modern-era Aussie fairytale/fable,
set in the Victorian highlands in the 1950s. Filmed on location
in the Victorian High Country and centred around the life of a silver
brumby as he battles to become all that he can be, this is essentially
a horsey coming-of-age story. The magnificence of the young wild
stallion Thowra is the heart of this epic tale, as we follow the
life of this brumby king.
Mitchell's fascination with horses and with the legends of the
surrounding mountains near her own bush home inspired the story,
and director John Tatoulis's take on her work cleverly superimposes
the human characteristics onto the horse identities in a way that
is surprisingly relatable.
It's a movie for horse-lovers, with little focus on human relationships/ideals.
The fantasy and reality elements are blended together well and the
fable like story, of which the horse focus is dominant, sees the
human element in Crowe, Goodall and Deamion, mainly used as peripheral
characters. The only real human relationship is that between mother
and daughter, but little of it is explored and it really only serves
to paint a bigger picture, driving along the action of the horse
fantasy which expands on the human relationship elements.
The film's music and score is effective, a blend of earth sounds
with traditional didgeridoo elements which create a distinctive
Aussie vibe, and the scenes that rely on these are rich in atmosphere
and perfectly relay that traditional bush/mountain feeling.
The DVD extras delve further into Mitchell's genuine love affair
with the Australian bush-way-of-life and detail much of the film's
shoot with then-and-now interviews (mostly then) with various members
of the cast and crew.
The profile on Elyne Mitchell from Channel Nine's Sunday program
is a delightful character piece about this remarkable author who,
at the time of shooting in April 1992, had spent the best part of
sixty plus years enjoying Australia's unforgiving wilderness and
mountain regions. Mitchell is a wonderfully endearing subject and
her chat about the book's origins - it was written as a way to encourage
her daughter to read - and how the story came to be adapted to film
is enthralling down to the last second.
There are also interviews with Caroline Goodall and Ami Deamion
(better known today as musical artist Amiel), but the best are with
Russell Crowe who chats candidly about acting styles and piecing
together a performance. Director John Tatoulis talks on the arduous
task of finding horses that can act and on working closely with
Mitchell to find the right texture and feel for the film. There's
a short 'on the set piece' with the film's horse master and animal
trainer Evanne Chesson.
The unforgiving mountainous regions of Australia's high country,
the punishing bush climate and the magic the outback stirs up within
our imaginations, creates a wonderful children's adventure in The
Silver Brumby.
This adapts the first in Elyne Mitchell's series of popular children's
books which were first published in 1955. Making a film where the
central characters are horses though is not an easy task unless
one is prepared to resort to animation or nature film footage with
dubbed over voices, or go the Babe (1995) route with animatronics.
[Similar things were tried with the animated Spirit: Stallion of
Cimmaron (2002)]. The film takes neither course so in order to tell
essentially a cinematically non-empathic story, it has to invent
the recursive structure of having Goodall (playing Mitchell) write
the story for her daughter in order to narrate the tale. It is a
device which has its distancing effect - unlike the story the horses
are now no longer the central characters - although it does allow
the various horses to be imbued with enough character to be sympathetic.
Ultimately though the various inter-horse and horse-human politicking
is not really that interesting (unless one wants to see Russell
Crowe before he got famous). Young girls who like horses will probably
like it, but as a children's tale it seems oddly plodding. The outer
story tends to get somewhat silly at times - the scenes of British-born
Caroline Goodall, who hardly convinces as a High Country wife, imparting
Aboriginal mysticism, Bush Country wisdom and lessons in growing
up to daughter Daemion come out fairly unintentionally funny. The
main appeal of the film is principally a visual one - the horses
prancing in slow-motion are great and the helicopter tracking shots
of them racing across the High Country, accompanied by eerie music,
is often exhilarating. Copyright Richard Scheib 1994
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THE SILVER STALLION
Lions Gate // 1993 // 93 Minutes // Rated G
Reviewed by Judge Joel Pearce // June 2nd, 2004
It's hard to nail down exactly what The Silver Stallion is. It
is a horse fable, looking at the Australian wild herds, but it is
also a family film about our relationship with the natural world.
Elyne Mitchell (Caroline Goodall, Schindler's List) is an author
living in the Australian high country. After a strong storm that
frightens her daughter Indi (Ami Daemion), Elyne starts to write
a story for her about Thowra the wild brumby (that's horse, for
those of us in the Northern Hemisphere) and his struggles against
a rancher only known as The Man (Russell Crowe, Master and Commander).
These two stories connect in a number of ways, and the lines between
fiction and reality begin to blur.
While there are a number of strong elements in The Silver Stallion,
there are also a number of serious problems. The clearest strengths
are in the performances from the two leads. Caroline Goodall is
wonderful as Elyne Mitchell, especially in the way she deals with
her daughter. Although she has strong feelings about the treatment
of horses in captivity, she suppresses those feelings in order to
teach her daughter how important it is to consider all sides of
an issue. Elyne's character gives the movie a complexity that many
family movies about animals don't have, and a more complicated message
than "people have done horrible things to the world."
Russell
Crowe also does an excellent job as The Man (as he would like to
be called from now on). His character is more developed than it
needs to be. As a result, he is not the evil horse hunter that he
could have been, but rather a strong competitor for Thowra in a
long running battle of wills. He does seem evil when he is seen
from the horses' perspective, such as when the brumbies are captured
and broken by the men. There are many moments where he is seen as
a kind and gentle man, though, strengthening the complex message
that Elyne passes on to her daughter.
The only real weak link in the acting comes from Ami Daemion, who
seems unusually flighty - even for a teenage girl. Her character
is little more than a recipient of the story, but every one of her
lines feels forced and awkward.
The other major weakness is in the fable of Thowra. One of the
difficulties in filming animals is that they are terrible at taking
direction. While some of this problem can be avoided through good
training or just running the camera until the animal performs the
desired action. The makers of The Silver Stallion use both of these
approaches to get their horse footage, but it never works out quite
the way they would hope. A lot of the horse scenes are just panning
shots of horses running by - over and over and over again. This
makes the numerous chase sequences that are more repetitive than
exciting. The tale about the horse often feels like a story a child
makes up, loosely connected events strung together as they are invented.
At the end of this story, the fictional story and Elyne's story
begin to merge, and it compromises the moral strength of the film's
ideology.
My other complaint is in the way the natural world is handled in
the film. Through the script, it is clear that Elyne Mitchell is
an expert on wildlife, and much of the early part of her story describes
the lives of the wild brumbies in their natural environment. However,
part of the way through the story, Elyne and Indi come across a
young kangaroo whose leg has been caught and wounded, being watched
over by its mother. They approach the kangaroo, free it, pick it
up, and take it home. The young kangaroo cuddles up to them immediately
and the mother quietly keeps her distance. Granted, I am not an
expert on marsupials in crisis situations, but I cannot imagine
that whole scenario happening without a lot of kangaroo bites. The
baby kangaroo then becomes an issue as Indi does not want to release
it back to the wild, a story element we have all seen too many times.
This entire subplot does not work well, and merely exists to drive
the point of the film home one more time.
The disc leaves a lot to be desired. The video is in its original
1.33:1 aspect ratio, but doesn't look that great. The image is drab
looking and lacks definition. To be fair, most of these seem to
be problems with the source print rather than the transfer. Still,
it does not do justice to the beautiful scenery of the Australian
high country. The sound is about the same. The Dolby stereo track
captures the voices and music well enough, but does not do anything
to impress. There aren't any extras at all, and that means no subtitles.
Families that love animals should give The Silver Stallion a rent.
The footage of the horses and the Australian countryside is beautiful,
and it tells the whole man vs. nature story better than many other
family films. Unfortunately, the quality of the disc prevents me
from making a strong purchase recommendation. Families that don't
love animals will probably want to pass this one up completely.
Caroline Goodall and Russell Crowe did their best, and are free
to go, once they have released any captive animals they have back
into the wild. Everyone else involved is to spend a winter in the
high country with the wild brumbies.
Originally
The Man in the film was not going to have a dog. But Evanne (Evanne
Chesson, the Animal Trainer for Silver Brumby) brought Coolie, a
blue-merle (bluey-black) German Collie (Australian shepherd dog),
to early rehearsals. Coolie lost no time in making friends with
actor Russell Crowe, who stars as The Man. The production team saw
the growing affinity between man and dog and realized they had a
new star on their hands. Coolie must have known what he was doing
because, as Evanne explains, he's normally much happier in the company
of horses.
"But the kelpies are such happy animals, they are one of the
nicest breeds of dogs in the world, and we found they were much
easier to work with.