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★★★★½
8 March 2018
A movie review of SWEET COUNTRY. |
“I want to see him come back alive,” Fred (Sam Neill)
SWEET COUNTRY is a vitriolic Australian western concerning the abuse of the indigenous population. It is finely calibrated, and searingly acted. The film joins the slowly growing excellent subgenre. (It is well worth your time to check out THE PROPOSITION, RED HILL and MYSTERY ROAD.) SWEET COUNTRY reaches for the holy grail of storytelling: Being unpredictable. Why is it then not a five star film? One has been thinking about that since viewing last year. It is hard to pin down. Perhaps SWEET COUNTRY is too achingly bleak. (One secretly hoped for a DJANGO UNCHAINED re-writing of history.) Nearly a century on from the period depicted, how far has enlightenment been achieved? There is no obvious catharsis. No clear solution or path is offered. Maybe that is too much to ask for?
SWEET COUNTRY is a vitriolic Australian western concerning the abuse of the indigenous population. It is finely calibrated, and searingly acted. The film joins the slowly growing excellent subgenre. (It is well worth your time to check out THE PROPOSITION, RED HILL and MYSTERY ROAD.) SWEET COUNTRY reaches for the holy grail of storytelling: Being unpredictable. Why is it then not a five star film? One has been thinking about that since viewing last year. It is hard to pin down. Perhaps SWEET COUNTRY is too achingly bleak. (One secretly hoped for a DJANGO UNCHAINED re-writing of history.) Nearly a century on from the period depicted, how far has enlightenment been achieved? There is no obvious catharsis. No clear solution or path is offered. Maybe that is too much to ask for?
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Based on a true story. The central Australia frontier. 1929. Post First World War post-traumatic stress is being suffered, undetected by Harry March (Ewen Leslie). New to the small, isolated community, Harry goes to his neighbour Fred Smith (Sam Neill). Man of the cloth Fred lives with an indigenous family, lead by Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris). Fred is illuminated even by today’s standards, “We’re all equal here. We’re all equal in the eyes of the Lord,” he observes.
Harry wants Fred’s help to do up his farmstead. It is hard to care about Harry’s mental health when he is so clearly racist, referring to the native Australians as “black stock” as if cattle. Also, it turns out he is a rapist. Is three years on the Western Front a dubious excuse, or the reason his moral compass has disintegrated?
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Eventually Sam is left with no choice but to confront Harry, and SWEET COUNTRY quickly evolves into a chase thriller. And so much more. A courtroom drama is deftly mixed in, and a coming of age tale – 14-year-old Philomac is performed seamlessly by twins Tremayne and Trevon Doolan. SWEET COUNTRY plays on genre. The posse in pursuit is not the anonymous nightmare in BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. They are used to illustrate. At one point Sam rescues Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown). And the film asks: Does mercy beget mercy?
Subverting expectations, SWEET COUNTRY does not shy away from observing race relations and hammering racism. The indigenous peoples are still shockingly almost slaves in 1920s Australia. They have little rights. They are effectively occupied by descendants of colonialists, who continue to land grab. A stain on Australia, an example of bigotry that so few countries acknowledge of their history. Where are the financial and legal reparations?
Heartbreaking and harrowing, SWEET COUNTRY innovatively uses flash forwards to presage. Any audience assurance is zapped, yet the ending is still unexpected. Impressive.
What prevents SWEET COUNTRY from being overwhelmingly dispiriting is the fact that it exists.
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