So far this is a revenge western (or southern). The constant stand off between Clare and Billy will inevitably soften or be forced into trust and a bond will ensue. The baddy toy soldier will get some bullets for lunch and the credits will roll. But the best revenge plots put their enraged protagonists through an ethical wringer and end unpredictably. Even John Wayne's Ethan in The Searchers had to stand back from his primeval hatred and take some serious stock. After the opening of this story we have no greater wish than for nasty, lingering deaths for Hawkins and his crew. Until a big and almost eerie spoil-able moment, we expect that very thing will be happening if we just sit tight and wait.
But this is a Jennifer Kent film. Her first feature, The Babadook, showed us grief, survivor guilt and depression as a monster movie where the monster was just a thought made manifest but grew into terrifying power. It remains one of my favourite films of the decade and one of the best ever made in this country. When I heard that her second would not be horror but revenge I was nothing but intrigued. She'd only made one feature film but I was eager to see her take on the subject. It was worth the wait.
There's a lot going on here. First, the setting. Van Diemen's Land, the most brutal of the Australian penal colonies. While there is little direct depiction of convict life Clare and her family are convict caste and we are in no doubt as to where they sit in the social order. They are also Irish which puts them into near untouchable status: it wasn't just bodies that got transported to the southern colonies.
Billy, an indigenous man living where the most complete exercise of Australian genocide was enacted. During the second act he learns that all of his people have been exterminated by the British. So, it's not just the rape, the murder and the child killing, but the violation of most of the people on the island. From the off, we are looking at a hunt we know to be bigger than its parts and one that we, against ourselves, want to end in retributive violence ... in some of the most breathtakingly beautiful country on the planet.
This is shot in 4 x 3 which keeps us all close together in the bush which looks tall rather than scenic and gives a strong sense of lowered visibility. It's this rather than an affectation for the classic cinema shot before widescreen formats that its plot might suggest. That's another thing, there is no cuteness in this film. Even in The Babadook we got quite a lot of winks from classic and obscure horror movies showing on tvs in the house. It wasn't intrusive but it gave the film a slight distraction it suffered from. Here, we are in a place at a time and that's it. Well, of course it isn't, it does have a great deal to say to any time but within that tight 1.37:1 frame it's 1825.
And then there's reconciliation. Clare's lower caste state and Billy's even lower one fuel the beginnings of an understanding between them. But Kent knows, as do we, that she cannot deliver what hasn't happened unless it is through fantasy. Never say never, perhaps, but it won't be happening here where the violence is so easy to get away with and where few, if any, care to change that. That is the world we are in right up to the end credits.
And then there's the central driver which at first just looked like revenge but increasingly just looks like damage. Both Clare and Billy are bound by their trauma and whether it has been administered personally or through military invasion it can be hard for them to discern the difference between retribution and relief. We have been asking exactly what she has in mind in chasing seasoned soldiers through difficult terrain, outnumbered and outskilled. A pivotal moment sees Clare confronted with the very question of what she should do and it is life or death. She is fresh from an act of like-for-like brutality which tells us she is capable but when we see her in this (no spoilers) moment her and our most frantic thought is for survival, not justice. Billy couldn't just say a thing or two about that he has been. What was a serviceable vengeance plot now has a scary depth to it.
Irish actor Ainsling Franciosi holds the centre of the screen, in fury here and shivering vulnerability there bearing almost visible weight in her every move. Baykali Ganambarr keeps his gravity against Clare's tempest with a passivity that feels practised from the experience of pummelling authority. When he breaks from it the sense of his freedom can draw tears. Surrounded by bush that can variously soothe the eye but scream like a lost soul at night and settlers and cruelty-driven convicts on the way a kind of balance is struck but it's delicate and ready at the slightest touch to topple and kill.
Jennifer Kent has made another film of great depth that stretches out from its closest genre to shock us into thought. Reports of walkouts during early festival screenings are understandable but create their own questions. The violence is rough and hard to watch but its real ugliness comes from motivation rather than gore (though there is some of that). If what you've heard worries you I wish I knew how to assure you that the tougher parts of this ride are part of something transcendent that is worth every minute of screen time. Mind you, I sat through the entire end credits if only to feel soothed by the Irish lament that played over them. If you do see this film and don't feel an overwhelming urge to go forth and do something good for someone then you really have some hard questions for yourself.
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