Chineseness, Australianness, Homelessness: The Home Song Stories: Retold in a Spatial Perspective

The purpose of this article is to introduce the French philosopher Henri Lefe-bvre's spatial theory into the analysis of the Australian film The Home Song Stories. In particular, I intend to suggest that Lefebvre's considerations of space have the potential to provide a rich and insightful understanding to the film, which is not often afforded by other film studies approaches.The Home Song Stories (2007) is an Australian film depicting a true story about the writer Tony Ayres, here with the name Tom, as he traces his tumultuous childhood to rediscover his love for his mother, Rose, who committed suicide in Australia. Spanning four cosmopolitan cities of China and Australia, the film is an epic melodrama about migration, family dysfunction, and unrequited love, involving members of the Chinese diaspora living an extraordinary life on the margins of mainstream Australia in the 1960s and '70s (Yue, "Queer").