Puberty Blues

(1981)

Johnny's notes:

Puberty Blues is a "coming of age" drama from director Bruce Beresford (Don's Party, Money Movers) set amongst the surf culture on the beaches of Sydney in the late 70s. Debbie and Sue (Nell Schofield and Jad Capelja) are best friends and are desperately trying to fit in with the cool girls who hang out with the surfers. After been caught cheating on an exam, the girls become closer to being in the cool group. They join their parties where Debbie attempts to lose her virginity with the dopey Bruce, but fails both times she tries. Bruce dumps her, not exactly something Debbie has a problem with as she wants Danny.

Debbie and Sue want to surf, but 'chicks don't surf', they're only good for going to shop and getting a chiko roll. 'And don't take any bites from it, alright?'  Oh wow, this film is really is something - very much of the time and the culture where every girl's a mole and every bloke gets a root. While the feminist movement had well and truly set in, it was still very far from where young girls are today, and this film shows how much.

And don't forget an Australian slang dictionary if you watch this. Even I had a bit of trouble with what some things meant.

Nell Schofield non-nude collages

Jad Capelja non-nude collage. I'm still bummed about Jad Capelja only ever been in two films (the other been Freedom). And I can't find anything about where she went on the Puberty Blues DVD, I'll have to look again.

unknown actress film clip (see below)

Scoop's notes

Those of you who are not from Down Under may recognize director Bruce Beresford for his best Hollywood films, Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy. He went to Hollywood shortly after he won a shitload of awards, including an Oscar nomination, for Breaker Morant, which some consider to be the greatest Aussie film. It was nominated for 13 AFI awards (the Aussie Oscars) by the Australian Film Institute, which was pretty amazing because they only had 13 categories for feature length films, and there were no women in the cast, so it could not be nominated for the two actress categories. How could that happen? Multiple nominees in the same category. Two of its actors were nominated for Best Actor, and three were nominated for Best Supporting Actor. There was actually one category where the film was not nominated (best original musical score), and it was not eligible for the two actress categories, but it was nominated in the other 10 categories, and won every single one of them. The only three nominees who did not win were the three actors who lost to their fellow cast members!

1980 was not a good year for other Aussie films to take home some trophies. A prison film called Stir was nominated for 11 awards and -here's the weird part - that one also had no women in it, so it was completely shut out by Breaker Morant.

(Stir did have a chance to win "best original musical score" because of Morant's absence from that category, but it lost. So it goes.)