Source: thereelbits.com --- Saturday, October 07, 2017
The first peoples of Australia have long known of the power of the landscape, something cinema has only been exploring for just over a century. As a group of townsfolk watch The Story of the Kelly Gang in the streets, director Warwick Thornton reminds us SWEET COUNTRY is part of a long legacy of tales outlaws and injustices. Thorton’s first dramatic feature since 2009’s Samson and Delilah is based on the similar story of Wilaberta Jack, delivered to Thorton by sound designer David Tranter. In the outback Northern Territory in 1929, Aboriginal stockman Sam (Hamilton Morris) kills the contemptible station owner Harry Marsh (Ewen Leslie) in self-defence. Sam flees with his wife Lizzie (Natassia Gorey-Furber), while Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown) leads the posse of Aboriginal tracker Archie (Gibson John) and local landowners Fred Smith (Sam Neill) and Mick Kennedy (Thomas M Wright) to find him. If this were a traditional western narrative, Thornton would rapidly put us on the trail of the fugitive and leave us there. Yet he and screenwriter Steven McGregor spend time on the contrasts of the nation, from the god-fearing Smith, striving for some kind of equality in a town without a church, to the casually cruel Kennedy, whose prejudice seems to be the product of societal conformity more than an innate malicious streak. This becomes clearer as his relationship with the mixed heritage boy Philomac (Tremayne Doolan) progresses. Backe ...
from Australia http://ift.tt/2z6Hvkg
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