ABSTRACT
In its ability to capture the imagination of a country on the level of history, politics, media reportage and fantasy, the theme of the lost child can be understood as the archetypal core of an Australian cultural complex. Through this Jungian inflicted thinking, the archetype is theorised as a dominant psychological pattern that influences behaviour and affective responses. This introduction to The Lost Child Complex in Australian Film establishes the lost child as a common motif deeply embedded in the collective psyche that has been generationally stimulated through the storytelling of cinema. Identifying how the lost child is imagined in Australia since the inception of film is also about grappling with the cultural complex: trying to unlock what, in its persistence, we are saying to ourselves about ourselves. In broad strokes, the introduction outlines each chapter of the book under its three section headings - ‘The lost child complex - a cultural and screen history’, ‘Double wounding’, and ‘Inner children and the victory complex’ - concluding with an evaluation of the lost child as both a source of insight and the possibility of insight.
