FESTIVAL ’90 : Screenings Present Pacific Rim Cultures

Backroads

Australia Sunday, 4 p.m., Warner Grand, 478 W. 6th St., San Pedro; Sept. 6, 8 p.m., Melnitz Theater, UCLA

This little-known 1977 Philip Noyce film may actually be a high point of the whole ‘70s road genre. It has pace, atmosphere, rich characterizations and a crisply sustained what-the-hell mood that slides inexorably into disaster. The film’s slightly slapdash low-budget look even adds to its pungency; Noyce generates almost as much tension here as in his 1989 superglossy killer-afloat thriller “Dead Calm.” “Backroads” focuses on a pair of drifters--white (Bill Hunter) and aborigine (Gary Foley)--who steal a ’62 Pontiac and burn rubber in all directions, picking up three companions and rushing, casually, toward doom. Racism and cultural schisms are the movie’s major themes: in barely an hour, it explores them intelligently and rips open a dangerously picaresque off-road world before our eyes.