Solo

Billed as ‘love story of our time’, Solo draws on ideas about freedom, commitment, risk-taking and environmental protection popularised by the counterculture movement in the 1960s and 1970s

Solo, Australia/New Zealand, 1977

Director/editor: Tony Williams
Producers: David Hannay, Tony Williams
Executive producers: Bill Sheat, John Sturzaker
Associate producer: Tony Troke
Director of photography: John Blick
Screenplay: Tony Williams, Martyn Sanderson
Executive in charge of production: Patrick Cox
Director of aerial photography: Steve Locker-Lampson
Location sound mixer: Robert (Bob) Allen
Assistant editors: Annie Collins, Rod Prosser
Sound editor: Dell King

With: Martyn Sanderson (Jules/Catweazle), Lisa Peers (Judy Ballentyne), Jock Spence (Radio Operator), Vincent Gil (Paul Robinson), Perry Armstrong (Billy Robinson), Francis Edmund (School Teacher), Davina Whitehouse (Rohana Beaulieu), Maxwell Fernie (Crispin Beaulieu), Veronica Lawrence (Sue), Val Murphy (Anita)

35mm, 95 minutes, PG

Watch the trailer for Solo (7.88MB; 2.15 minutes)

Paul Robinson is a fire patrol pilot, scanning lonely, beautiful pine forests over an area of hundreds of square miles. He has chosen the isolation of a cockpit for seven hours a day. Paul is a solo father to teenage son, Billy, who is a solitary, intelligent child living in a world of his own imagination. Living in the forest in the isolated atmosphere of a fire-watching tower is Catweazle/Jules an eccentric workmate and friend of both Billy and Paul’s. Catweazle spends seven months at a time gazing from his tower, writing books about UFO’s, grids and other mystic theories he has been developing himself. Into this rather bizarre world comes Judy Ballentyne, a young Australian hitchhiker who is savouring freedom after a narrow escape from an early marriage. It is through her eyes that we first see the forest and the strange, lonely lives of Paul, Billy and Catweazle. The action of the film develops around the relationship between Paul and Judy as they fly across the spectacular countryside in his restored Tiger Moth bi-plane, with child Billy in tow. The mood at times is delicate, at times lyrical as the two reach out for each other from their different worlds.

“Billed as ‘love story of our time’, Solo draws on ideas about freedom, commitment, risk-taking and environmental protection popularised by the counterculture movement in the 1960s and 1970s, framing them in the ‘flying solo’ metaphor. Catweazle’s self-imposed isolation in a tower is explained in terms of his philosophy (‘Most people need less than they think’), Billy is singular in his eccentric personality, Judy runs from the tedium of long-term relationships and Paul, having spent years as a solo father, has made a virtue of anaesthetizing himself against feeling. Working against the stereotypes of the day – Judy isn’t focused on marriage, lateral-minded Billy is the anti-thesis of the macho adolescent in spite of his obsession with sex, Paul cries when he lets his guard down and the farmers are quite bizarre – the characterization is refreshingly different. The musical score supports the narrative without being obtrusive… Solo was partly financed by Australian money and was regarded as the first New Zealand co-production. Australians appeared in the roles of Judy and Paul. It was the first feature for many of the crew and, like Sleeping Dogs which was shot at the same time, served as a training ground for many filmmakers… On its release New Zealand-based critic Catherine de la Roche described Solo as ‘our best friend ever’.” — Helen Martin, New Zealand Film 1912-1996 (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1997)

“Says Tony Williams: ‘Everyone has a special time when they are more aware of themselves, more acutely in touch with their emotions. I remember as a kid one summer night, lying on my back and looking at the stars and feeling I was going to drop off the world and float into space. It was weird and yet strangely exhilarating. Later on it happened again, after the most intensive love affair had broken up. It’s painful and yet insanely indulgent – living on the edge of your own Universe. You’re in love or you’re alone – it’s almost the same feeling – something that you hold as your own – like walking into space, and struggling back again’.” — ‘Solo – Contemporary Love Story”, Daily Post, 6 August 1981