Original subtitles

Harvey was born into the world upside down, back to front, and was christened

Harvey Milos Krumpetsky.

His father's name was Maciek, a lumberjack with hands as big as shovels

that smelt of pine needles.

His mother's name was Liliana, a weary woman with lead in her veins from

in a mine.

She was obsessed with counting her fingers and had conversations with

that just weren't there.

The other villagers stayed well clear.

But she didn't need friends now that she had her miracle.

Harvey grew strong and healthy.

He had his father's ears and his mother's open heart.

But soon, his parents began to notice peculiarities.

He began to have odd twitches and liked to touch things with his index finger,

for no reason at all.

When he met someone, he had to touch them on the nose.

The doctor said he had Tourette's syndrome, a brain disorder that meant he

couldn't control his impulses.

It was like trying to control a sneeze.

There was no cure or explanation.

At school, Harvey was called a thick.

His friend was Bogus.

Bogus stuttered and had problems with his mucus.

The other kids threw stones and together they were tricked, teased and tortured.

Until Liliana pulled Harvey from school and decided to educate him herself.

Although she was illiterate, she knew about facts and filled his brain with

sorts of stuff.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Butterflies smell with their feet.

And elephants can't jump, no matter how hard they try.

Every day he wrote more and more facts in a notebook he carried.

Everywhere.

As Harvey grew taller and stronger, his mother grew shorter and madder,

slowly fizzling into insanity.

Often she'd mistake him for an intruder.

Harvey followed in his father's footsteps.

He liked working with him, but at times felt he needed to be alone with his

problems.

He'd ponder the world beyond, wishing for things to change.

And suddenly they did.

He returned to find his home burnt to the ground.

His mother had left a stove burning in the night, and Harvey found his parents

nearby. Frozen.

And nude.

But there was more to come.

The Germans invaded.

Harvey escaped and found himself on a ship bound for a place called Australia.

His world was turned upside down and back to front.

Again.

Harvey ended up in a small suburb called Spotswood.

He rented a small house with 11 other migrants and tried to assimilate as best

he could, changing his name from Harvey Krumpetsky to Harvey Crumpet.

He got a job.

And many years went by as he saved his money and tried not to indulge.

Life didn't change much, but his body did.

His hair fell out and regrew on his shoulders.

In the evenings, he'd learn English off an old television he'd found amongst the

rubbish.

He put little curtains on it and found it a mesmerizing source of facts.

The first thing he ever watched was a Bugbee Berkeley film.

He fell in love with all the bosoms and smiles.

It was so different to the spot for a dump.

At work, he tried to make friends.

But for Harvey, it wasn't easy.

Harvey's skull had split in half.

The doctors inserted a steel plate between his scalp and skull and laced it

with 19 stitches.

He was left with a scar that looked like he'd had a lobotomy.

Harvey wished he had more hair.

He left the dump and tried new jobs.

He seemed to get sacked a lot.

He didn't know why.

But he was always discovering more facts.

Rubber bands last longer if refrigerated.

The Bible was written by the same people who thought the earth was flat.

And time does not heal all wounds.

One time, Harvey got a job collecting golf balls.

This is where he got struck by lightning.

But he survived and even made it into the local newspaper.

Harvey began to wonder how he'd survived so much bad luck.

Maybe he was like a cat and had nine lives.

He thought he had about four left.

Actually, the biggest threat to his daily life was the 28 cigarettes he

He developed asthma, so went and saw his doctor.

In those days, the dangers of smoking were not known.

Dr. Greystains recommended Harvey smoke even more.

Smoke is soothing for the lungs, he'd say, just like steam in a sauna.

His asthma worsened and for every ten cigarettes, he had to have a puff from

asthma pump.

Years later, his doctor died from emphysema, just as the dangers of

finally revealed.

Harvey kept collecting facts. and one morning discovered one about himself.

His steel plate had become magnetized from the lightning strike.

Harvey made the papers.

Again.

Harvey's optimism began to crumble.

He thought about fate's horrible dealings, how he felt powerless, a

the world.

He wondered if he should just throw it all in.

Seize the day, Harvey.

Seize the day.

Carpe diem.

These simple, profound words struck a chord.

Harvey decided to turn his world upside down and back to front.

Again.

He stopped believing in fate and did exactly what the statue said.

He felt free and alive and joined a nudist group.

He became a vegetarian and joined an animal liberationist society, liberating

chickens and their eggs.

Harvey didn't just seize the day.

He was strangling it.

Despite his enlightenment, physical problems still plagued him.

One of his testicles developed cancer and had to be removed.

But this was when he met Nurse Valerie Burstall.

She had everything he didn't and was everything he wasn't.

Yet instantly, their pheromones fizzled together like ice cream and lemonade.

They decided to get married and had the ceremony in Cancer Ward 9.

Harvey wanted a nude wedding, but Valerie and the hospital forbade it.

Harvey had lost the testicle, but gained a wife.

He moved into Val's small apartment with her two cats and parrot, Brian.

Brian had a parasitic disease which made his feathers drop out.

Valerie was constantly knitting little jumpers to keep him warm.

For some reason, the pets resented Harvey.

Harvey and Val went to bed early every night and tried to get pregnant.

But there was not enough sperm in Harvey's lonely testicle and he was

sterile.

They decided to adopt and came across a little thalidomide girl.

They related to her immediately, took her home and named her Ruby after Val's

mother.

So little limbless Ruby, big bold Val, and magnetic Harvey

became a family.

Harvey gave up working and dedicated his time to teaching Ruby what he knew

about the world.

He taught her that animals had rights to...

and to always respect the environment, as well as herself.

He told her about the beauty of being nude, and to be never ashamed of your

body. Every body was unique.

Some people had less bits, some had more bits.

For every new fact she remembered,

He would stick a gold star to her wall

She adored her father

He was full of tricks and was like having her own private clown

At school, Ruby excelled.

She went into university and came out a lawyer.

Then moved to America and started her own practice, championing the rights of

the disabled.

Harvey and Val were extremely proud.

On Harvey's 65th birthday, Valerie's brain clotted.

And she died.

It was such a shock.

She'd never been sick.

Harvey was all alone again.

He had his daughter, but she was so far away.

He became a hermit and stopped washing.

His mind wandered slowly into senility.

It wasn't long before they took him away, when a neighbor found him trying

withdraw money from the microwave.

So began the last phase of Harvey's life, at Pleasant Paddocks.

He shared a room with a man called Hamish MacRumble.

Hamish looked like something off a tin of shortbread and had nostril hair that

looked like he was housing a family of spiders.

He was 94 years old and had given up the will to die.

He also had Alzheimer's and had recently burnt his ear trying to answer the

irons.

Harvey and Hamish pretended to dislike each other.

Harvey often stole Hamish's teeth, returned them and then showed him where

they'd been.

But Hamish always had his revenge.

Sometimes they'd sneak alcohol into the home and put on drunken shows with

knitted finger puppets the ladies were making for charity.

Everyone was thoroughly entertained, but were less than impressed when they

found Harvey the next morning in the corridor.

From then on, Harvey was to remain clothed at all times.

Often Harvey escaped at night and took Hamish on animal liberation jaunts.

They'd spray slogans on shop windows and on their way home paint over teenagers'

graffiti with their own sayings.

Escaping Alzheimer's patients were a particular problem at Pleasant Paddocks.

The staff would find them at bus stops waiting to go and see relatives, long

dead.

To solve this, they put an old bus stop in the home's garden, where the

Alzheimer's could sit for hours, waiting for a bus that would never come.

Time drizzled on while everyone sat around and waited to die.

Harvey's Alzheimer's began to worsen as he slipped in and out of dream worlds,

especially when the local church group visited.

God is better than football, God is better than beer,

God is better than cricket, cause God's there all the year.

He isn't shot on Sunday, he isn't stopped by...

Talk to him again and again and again and again and again.

God is better than football.

God is better than beer.

God is better than cricket.

Cos, cos they're all the year.

After these magical episodes, Harvey would get extremely depressed.

and was put on an amazing new drug.

But the only thing that really cheered him up were letters from Ruby across the

world.

He wished she'd visit more.

Harvey's mind grew darker, and the fire in his belly began to fizzle.

One night, he decided to end things.

But life had one more challenge for Harvey.

On the way back to his room, he came across a woman he'd never met.

Her name was Wilma.

She had a cancerous goiter and was embarrassed to leave her room during the

She was waiting for death to hurry up.

They sat and spoke long into the night.

In the night, Harvey realized he had some more living to do.

Wilma had decided she needed no more.

Thank you.

Harvey was going to enjoy what time he had left.

He took off his clothes and went and sat in the morning sun.

It shone on his face and he... He smiled for the first time in a long while, as

he waited for the invisible bus.

He knew it would never come, but he didn't mind.