Journey to the End of Night (1982)

4K RESTORATION

“As vivid as any chronicle of war you will ever see. The film records a soliloquy that evokes the past with a clarity rarely evoked in any autobiography or novel.” - Phillip Adams

“So compelling one accepts long passages of monologue as if they were action packed depictions. From this harrowing confessional emerges one more example of war’s essential obscenity.” – Keith Connolly, The Herald

Once seen, never forgotten. Forty years after World War II, veteran Bill Neave recounts his wartime experiences in Papua New Guinea, after escaping from the Japanese in Rabaul, East New Britain. As he speaks to the camera, the events are as vivid and alive to him as they were decades ago. He discusses his experiences with his dead friends: the murders, the horror, the brutality and the torture. Peter Tammer’s documentary masterpiece trivializes any questions about documentary authenticity or the border lines between truth and fiction by transcending them all. One of the greatest documentaries made in this country, it asks: “a soldier is trained to kill, but not to commit murder. But who can draw the line?”  Restored by Peter Tammer in 4K using Topaz Video AI, funded entirely by the filmmaker.

Introduced by Philip Brophy at Ritz Cinemas and Bill Mousoulis at Lido Cinemas.

“Peter Tammer…his masterpiece is Journey to the End of Night (1982), in which an Army man re-enacts – in a ghostly, play-acting fashion, as if in a trance – his extreme experiences of violence directed at Japanese soldiers.” – Adrian Martin 

“Draws the spectator into a hallucinatory psychodrama.” – Ghent Film Festival 

“By collapsing past and present, Tammer has created a remarkable sense of forty years of one man’s life.” Brian McFarlane, Cinema Papers 

“A powerful portrait of a damaged man.” – Glenn Dunks, The Guardian 

Rating

M

Duration

72 min

Language

English, Tok Pisin

Cast

Bill Neave, Bill Neave Jr., Connie Neave

Director

Peter Tammer