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 In Cinemas Thursday [M]
Director: Kriv Stenders
Runtime: 96mins
Life is pretty good in Australia … unless you were around in the 1900s for the first few years of federation. Back then Australia was a backwards savage nation in the middle of nowhere, populated by children of London’s worst criminals. Nobody in their right mind actually wanted to live in a country that was 80 percent desert and outback until they found out there was gold in the soil. Lucky Country seeks to demystify the scenic and beautiful landscapes of the Australian outback normally associated with the writings of Henry Lawson or Banjo Patterson, and instead replaces them with sobering, brutal, harsh reality.
Kriv Stender’s third feature is one part Sierra Madre and two parts Into The Wild. Nat (Aden Young) has dragged his kids to an isolated farm in the woods, where he believes he is able to live off the land. Tom (Toby Wallace) and Sarah (Hanna Mangan-Lawrence) aren’t dealing with their father’s lifestyle choice. Their situation has in fact become quite desperate, no friends, no money, and no food. Enter three ex-soldiers who arrive one night at their cabin. Tom, like his father, believes these men are providence, and take them into their house. As it turns out, one of them has struck gold in a nearby mine and is trying to keep it secret from the other two men. Inevitably once gold enters into the minds of the desperate, people begin to reveal their true nature.
Performances are good across the board, with exceptional work from Aden Young as the tortured father Nat. The production and costume design effectively sells the idea of taking place within the period, and the camerawork is able to convey the claustrophobic darkness and isolation experienced by the characters. While the director’s vision of presenting the audience with an entertaining thriller set in colonial times is resolute, he does not take it far enough to be a truly memorable experience. Character moments are bogged down with poetic dialogue that feel like it’s meant to mean more than it’s worth caring about, and the story’s end is unsatisfying only because too much restraint was placed on the script and its characters. Basically I wanted to see shit get fucked up in a big way … and I didn’t get what I wanted from the build up of the plot.
I admire Kriv Stender’s efforts for trying to make an entertaining ‘movie’, however it still felt like I was watching a ‘film’. Although at the end of the day, it remains a quite enjoyable film, and better in scope and filmmaking than what Hollywood and the rest of Australia has to offer in terms of recent period thrillers.
*** ˝
ELWOOD LEE
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