ABSTRACT
Although previous chapters described childhoods caught by varying degrees of distress, the films here - The Sound of One Hand Clapping (dir. Richard Flanagan, 1997), The Eye of the Storm (dir. Fred Schepisi, 2011), Beautiful Kate (dir. Rachel Ward, 2009), Charlie’s Country (dir. Rolf de Heer, 2014) and Predestination (dirs. Michael and Peter Spierig, 2014) - emphasise the potency of a tenacious internal lost child. Here the seemingly autonomous complex claims and haunts adult characters. As a way of sustaining the dramatic action, many of these figures are unable to move beyond the restricting limits the complex places on their reflections, perceptions and behaviours. The stories of those who manage to move forward in their lives, despite restrictions imposed during childhood, are useful devices for acknowledging the complex, understanding its influence and potentially easing/limiting its personal and cultural reach. While no central character remains unscathed, all retreat to the lost child motif as a source of potential renewal. Predestination encapsulates much of what this book has argued of lost child cinema in terms of memory, acknowledgement and capture by the complex. A close discussion of this film will draw all the previous elements of the chapter together.
