Ladies In Black

Ladies in Black captures the rich tapestry of human experience which shaped Australian culture in the late 1950s. By recreating an authentic and nuanced account of what post-WWII life was like in Sydney, the film earns its place on the IPA’s Australian Canon of great literary works.

The coming-of-age storyline deals tactfully and often humorously with diverse themes from feminism to class and racial differences as it follows young Lisa’s experiences starting a temporary job in the women’s dress section of a leading Sydney department store (F.G. Goode’s – a thinly disguised David Jones). The teenager has just finished her final school exams and is hoping to attend university in the new year. Her life quickly becomes enmeshed with those of co-workers Patty Williams, Fay Baine and the fashionable Slovenian Magda Szombatheli who presides over the prestigious and pricey Model Gowns showroom. The four women’s stories are woven together into a heartwarming film which addresses the sharply topical issue of immigration – a key component of Australia’s cultural heritage.

Set in the days before Christmas 1959, the nation is enjoying a sustained economic boom and is poised on the brink of the sexual revolution. The swirling currents of social change are highlighted in the generation of capable young women and refugees seeking to make something of themselves in the wake of WWII. This drive for change in the social landscape is embodied by Leslie who is transformed from a wide-eyed schoolgirl into a fashionable young woman ready to make her mark on the world. The primary catalyst for this evolution is Magda who takes the teenager under her wing and introduces her to a world of cultural European refinement. The profound impact Magda has on Leslie mirrors the broader influence of post-WWII European immigrants in Australia. Lisa’s desire to go to university represents a shift in attitude towards women’s education, later reinforced by Good’s supervisor Miss Cartwright who says, “there is nothing more wonderful than a girl who is clever”.

The clash of cultures is evident throughout the movie. Magda stands out among her Anglo-Saxon co-workers at Goode’s department store as a paragon of sophistication. The broader community of well-educated, culturally rich Europeans also contrast sharply with the longer established Australian communities. The quintessential “Aussie” actor, Shane Jacobson (he of Kenny, amongst other endearing characters), is pitch-perfect in this exchange played out with Angourie Rice:

Lisa: I'm sorry I'm late, but, we went for a walk and Magda told me about Slovenia before the war. Oh, and we talked about books. And Stefan made us a lovely lunch.

Mr. Miles: Who's Stefan?

Lisa: He's Magda's husband.

Mr. Miles: Oh, right, he made the lunch?

Lisa: European men like to cook.

Mr. Miles: Ah! Hmm, didn't know that. I like to drink. I'm off to the pub. See you in a couple of hours.

While the Europeans are scorned by some Australians as ‘reffos’ for their newcomer status, they take it in good humour and appear to look down on their detractors with one pointing out Australians are “descended from convicts”. (there are some echoes here of “Nino Culotta” in They’re a Weird Mob, 1966, also in the IPA Australian Canon). While there is a strong divide between the two groups of people, the children of the newcomers appear to be mainly free from stigma. This is exemplified by a conversation between Lisa and her mother about Michael, the son of Hungarian immigrants. The mother points out that Michael “sounds Australian” to which Lisa responds “well he was born here”. Her mother then concludes “well I guess he must be Australian”.

While the status of refugees housed offshore has been a hotly contested issue in recent years, Ladies in Black points to the advantages of immigration and integration – a neglected but relevant issue both at home and internationally. The film inverts the over-used narrative which dubs all immigrants victims and show Anglo-Saxon characters gaining something valuable from their foreign friends. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement where all parties stand to gain something. Lisa is transformed through her relationship with Magda and Fay overcomes her scorn of ‘reffos’ after she starts dating Rudi, a Hungarian refugee. Telling the story of his escape from war torn Europe and communist rule he says, “This is where I intend to make money. This is the country of opportunity”.

Meanwhile the clash of ideas mostly plays out in discussions between Lisa and her more traditional father over her desire to continue her studies after school. “No daughter of mine will ever go to a university,” he grunts during one such altercation. But Lisa’s stay-at-home mother is on her daughter’s side and skillfully tricks Leslie’s father into signing the application papers for university while he’s distracted watching television. When Lisa’s results are released and his whole office comes to congratulate him, the father turns a corner and starts coming around to the idea of university. In the same way many older Australians were required to adjust their worldview as social change swept through.

Based on Madeleine St. John’s well-regarded novel published in 1993, the film has been the long-term project of director Bruce Beresford who said in a 2019 interview he found the theme of “cultural clash” caused by the waves of Europeans following World War II “particularly fascinating”. “It’s all based on real people, and mostly I know who they are. The character that Julia Ormond plays, the old woman, is still alive,” he told the Hollywood Reporter.

St John was born in Sydney in 1941 and died in 2006. According to Text Publishing, which re-published her book in 2018 (as a tie-in to the film):

St John studied Arts at Sydney University, where her contemporaries included Bruce Beresford, Germaine Greer, Clive James and Robert Hughes. In 1965 she married Chris Tillam, a fellow student, and they moved to the United States where they first attended Stanford and later Cambridge.

From Cambridge, St John relocated to London in 1968 with the hope that Chris would follow. The couple did not reunite and the marriage ended. St John settled in Notting Hill. She worked at a series of odd jobs, and then, in 1993, published her first novel, The Women in Black, the only book she set in Australia. When her third novel, The Essence of the Thing (1997), was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, she became the first Australian woman to receive this honour.

In an introduction to that edition, excerpted here, Beresford wrote that it was Clive James (who, incidentally, has written for an IPA publication, here) who:

told me, sometime in 1993, that Madeleine St John, whom we had both known at Sydney University, had published a novel – The Women in Black. He was so effusive in his praise of its graceful prose, its humour and observations, that I rushed into Hatchards, in Piccadilly, and bought a copy immediately. Like Clive, I was entranced by the book, the touching story of a young girl whose life is influenced by the migrant woman she meets while working in a Sydney department store during the Christmas holidays.

Although the film is not overtly conservative, it is illustrative that a true (paleo-)conservative like ‘Taki’ of Spectator fame (also a co-founder of The American Conservative), could be so utterly charmed by it:

The movie was released last year and it makes Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life seem a downer by comparison. The teenager, played by Miss (Angourie) Rice, has a mother who adores her and a gruff father who works as a printer at the Sydney Morning Herald and doesn’t understand the modern world. Remember, it’s 1959, pre-everything that’s horrible like the internet, Facebook, Twitter, computers, mobiles, selfies, the F-word, promiscuity, rap, leggings, porn and the EU. The teenager is divine and a top student. Her smile is to die for. But she also works at Goode’s and she comes under the watchful eye of a once-grand Hungarian (sic) lady, who gets Miss Rice to be prettier and prettier by showing her how to dress better and how to manage her hair. Overnight she becomes a rare beauty, always smiling, always happy and divine. Her mother is over the moon. The father is not so sure.

For Taki (Panagiotis Theodoracopulos, if you must), the contrast with standard Hollywood fare could not be greater:

If movies educate the masses, no wonder we’re in such a mess. Nowadays, the F-word is ubiquitous in every cool person’s conversation, and things have got so out of hand there were cretins who recently expressed sympathy with some Manson murderers simply because they were women. Movies today thrive on violence, swear words and a loathing of traditional bourgeois values. It is a world of misogyny, toxic masculinity and white male privilege. No wonder ethnic minorities feel aggrieved. All they have to do to feel like that is to watch today’s movies (read more here, $).

In 2015 Ladies in Black was produced as a musical, with music and lyrics by Tim Finn (of Split Enz and Crowded House) and book by Carolyn Burns, with runs in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra. Reviewing it for The Australian (here, $), Martin Buzzacott said:

The 11-member cast is as charming as Madeleine St John’s novel on which Carolyn Burns has based her script, but for all the feel-good nostalgia, it contains deceptively timely social commentary on the importance of engaging with those who are different from you.

Backed by a six-member band, the hits come constantly, from Lisa’s lovely opening number based on Blake’s Tiger tiger burning bright, ranging through He’s a bastard where audience laughter nearly drowns out the ensemble, and the show’s uplifting theme of Can’t wait until tomorrow becomes today has all the Broadway qualities required of it.

Ladies in Black speaks to the incredible Australian capacity to adjust and flourish in a changing world. As a young woman writing about another young woman, I found Lisa’s journey still resonates today. While Sydney looks very different in the 2022, there are multiple points of familiarity in the scenery and culture. The interwoven stories come together to form a coherent and vivid picture of Australia in 1959. Great attention to detail has brought to life the high-street shops, tramways and businesses of Sydney with the sets, costumes and colour accurately reflecting the time within which the story is set. The film triumphs in its emotional appeal to the human experience but more importantly the Australian way of life.

This appreciation of Ladies in Black was written by IPA Researcher, Brianna McKee, in 2022, specifically for The Genius of Australia.