Film review: Snowtown the movie
NEW Australian drama Snowtown stands as the one of most impacting films ever made in this country.
NEW Australian drama Snowtown stands as the one of most impacting films ever made in this country.
---
Snowtown (MA15+)
Rating: 4 stars
Director: Justin Kurzel (feature debut)
Starring: Daniel Henshall, Lucas Pittaway, Louise Harris, Richard Green.
Life as you'd rather not know it
IMPRESSIVELY directed, brilliantly acted and a complete work of focused, brutal power, Snowtown stands as the one of most impacting films ever made in this country.
However, by virtue of its disturbing subject matter - the exploits of John Bunting, our most infamous serial killer - Snowtown is an uncompromising ordeal that will be too much for most viewers.
What we have here is modern cinema at its most commendable, and yet, also at its most unwatchable.
You have been warned. Once you enter Snowtown, forgetting is not an option, and forgiveness will not be sought.
The film is set exclusively on the northern fringes of Adelaide, represented here as a drab suburban wasteland, as hard on the eye as it is hard on those that live there.
First-time director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant, using pointers from books by Andrew McGarry (The Snowtown Murders) and Debi Marshall (Killing for Pleasure), methodically map out their setting in a stark, Bunting-free first act.
Almost miraculously, Kurzel and Grant make a compelling argument - on both a sociological and psychological level - as to how Bunting's unprecedented brand of evil was able to thrive in a place like this.
With the levels of dread already steadily rising, Bunting (played to calmly chilling effect by Daniel Henshall) matter-of-factly makes his entrance.
If we barely notice him at first, it is because the film is tagging along at the side of James Vlasskis (Lucas Pittaway), a solitary, sexually-abused teen destined to become one of Bunting's key accomplices.
Well past the half-way mark, Snowtown is noticeably still holding back on any direct depictions of the atrocities committed by Bunting.
Instead the film casts its unblinking eyes on how Bunting cunningly infected the minds of those around him, regularly chairing kitchen-table committee meetings about who in their neighbourhood should deserve to die.
It could be argued that in these telling scenes, Snowtown fails to isolate a solid motive - aside from a vague sense of misplaced (a)moral outrage - for the murderous actions of Bunting and his followers.
It could also be argued that a man as sick as John Bunting did not need a fathomable reason to end anothers life.
The final judgment on the matter is left to the viewer. And after you come to experience in graphic detail what came to be known as the "bodies in the barrels" case, you may be too upset to deliver your verdict.
Because Snowtown is doomed in many ways to leave viewers in varying states of shock, it may be overlooked that the film has been made with measured sensitivity and genuine intelligence.
Special mention must be made of three first-class contributions that set this extraordinary film apart from the rest.
The direction of Justin Kurzel heralds the arrival of a fully-formed talent who is sure to go on to bigger things in the years to come.
Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (who also lensed last year's acclaimed crime pic Animal Kingdom) is one of the most exciting creatives working with a camera anywhere in the world right now.
And last, but by no means least, the unfeasibly immersive performance of the unheralded Daniel Henshall as John Bunting - both repelling and compelling every step of the way - is acting of the highest calibre.
The intensely naturalistic performances that Kurzel has extracted from his hand-picked supporting cast of unknowns and amateurs (several of whom live in the same neighbourhoods canvassed here) lend the film a gut-wrenching authenticity and damaged grace that cannot be denied.
www.snowtownthemovie.com