Four young heroin addicts scour the streets of Melbourne in search of some good-quality narcotics – or as they call it, 'pure shit’. In the space of 48 hours, a friend dies of an overdose, they are ripped off by criminals and arrested and assaulted by police. They bungle a break-in, get chased by hooligans and one is sent to a methadone clinic. The search for drugs veers between farce and tragedy, but it never stops.
Acting
Helen Garner's chaotic desperation before she became a literary icon.
Direction
Deling's kitchen-sink naturalism predicts Clarke's 'The Boys' by decades.
Director
Bert Deling
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Helen Garner's performance here directly inspired her novel 'Monkey Grip' and decades of Australian grunge realism.
Banned in several Australian states upon release; original prints were destroyed, making surviving copies precious bootleg gold.
US
AU
