Paul Cox is more praised outside of Australia than within it. Like that other prolific iconoclast Werner Herzog, Cox's career intersperses feature work with nearly as many documentaries, and in many ways this movie about a burgeoning romance between piano tuner (and shoplifter) Peter (Norman Kaye) and mousy bank teller Patricia (seminal Australian actor Wendy Hughes ) feels like a documentary in its close, keen, and sensitive observation of their romance. Both Peter and Patricia are recently liberated from their parents -- he from looking after his recently deceased mother, she because she's finally moved out of her oppressive parents' house -- and their timid romance is full of tender, tentative steps out of isolation and into self-assertion. Shot with a tweedy, muted palette, like a Vermeer, this movie reflects Cox's gentleness and respect towards actors -- he famously refuses to make them screen test for any role because he fears the process is "humiliating and degrading". Named "Best Film of 1982" by the Australian Film Institute.

By Violet LeVoit