Summary:
A schoolteacher in the remote reaches of the Australian Outback tries to escape the wilderness during his holiday, but the outback has other plans for him.
My Thoughts:
Setting is important in story, but sometimes, like in movies like “Wake in Fright”, setting can be the most important aspect of a story. Setting tells us how to feel about a situation; it can be a metaphor for the character’s state of mind- like in “Through a Glass Darkly”, when Karin runs to the shipwreck, it shows her dilapidated and confused mindset. Setting can also be an antagonist, which is what I would consider it to be in this film (“Deliverance” or “The Martian” would be good examples of where a setting can work as an antagonist). While setting is important to every film, in many films the setting is often a background dressing. In this film, it is front and center. The setting is more dynamic of a character than many of the secondary characters that populate ‘The Yabba’, the hellish town that our protagonist wanders into. This is a film about trying to escape the quiet rural areas, and being completely unable to shake its weight and pull. There might be nothing out in the outback, but that nothing is a vicious bog that grabs hold of your leg when you step into it and refuses to let go.
“What do you do for work?” “I’m a slave.”
John Grant (Gary Bond, “Zulu”) is a teacher working for the Australian government as an educator for children that live in the far reaches of the outback. On his vacation, he decides to travel to Sydney to visit his girlfriend, and along the way he stops at a small town where there’s nothing to do but drink and gamble. John gambles, and at first wins big. Thinking that he might be able to use the money to escape the outback for good, and finally take himself and his girlfriend to England, John returns to gamble some more, only to loose all of his money. He wanders The Yabba, trying to find money or a way to get to Sydney, dealing with the locals and attempting to survive the harsh conditions.
I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I found this movie, in fact, I thought I was getting into a different kind of movie altogether. It’s nice to go into a film not knowing a lot about it, because that’s oftentimes when you’re most surprised by what a movie can do. I read a very brief description of this film before throwing it on (it’s currently streaming on Amazon Prime), and I thought that it would be a thriller along the lines of “Breakdown” with Kurt Russell- a guy wanders into a town and then has to deal with the fallout when the locals hamper him. Well, really, this film is more about just trying to get out of the outback and being completely unable to do so, and that turned out to be far more interesting anyways.
This film is full of characters that seem destitute and downhearted; they seem resigned to their fates in a way that only condemned men do. When John first wanders into a bar in the Yabba, it seems as if the entire populous of the town is gathered under the roof. There’s nothing else to do in the Yabba but drink, and that becomes incredibly apparent as the Sherriff buys John drink after drink after drink, instructing him to down each beer as if it were tap water. As John becomes more intoxicated and tries to slow down, the Sherriff chides him, saying he must not be a Yabba man.
There’s a strange sort of savage tribalism that goes into the relationships between the people of the Yabba. They’re all out there to survive and they know it. The land demands they be rough and tough in order to survive, and that’s exactly what the populous does. They have no intention of getting out of the outback because where is there to go? The Outback seems endless and horrifying and deadly. The residents seem to think the best way to live is to stay put in the town where you grew up and drink yourself to death.
I went into this film expecting some sort of backwoods thriller, but I was instead rewarded with a glimpse of a life I seldom gave thought to. This is probably the most realistic depiction of the outback I’ve seen on screen (this isn’t “Kangaroo Jack” or “Crocodile Dundee”- this is the brutal, unforgiving outback), and it’s by no means an easy watch. The most difficult scene to watch is that of kangaroo hunting. The producers of the film gave a note at the end of the movie that the hunting depicted on screen was actual footage of a hunt that happened. The producers showed this footage to demonstrate the cruelty of this sport and the senselessness of killing those poor majestic creatures, but I honestly wish I wouldn’t have seen those scenes. I have a hard time watching any sort of animal cruelty, and even though this footage was being used to show how horrible the cruelties are, I still did not want to see it. Honestly, I know the scene is important to the story and important to crafting the setting, but if I’d have known about the kangaroo hunting scene I probably would’ve given a second thought to watching this film. The scene lasts probably ten to fifteen minutes of the film, and it shows kangaroos just being blown apart and left to die. It’s brutal and horrible and I hated every minute of those scenes. Think LONG and HARD about whether or not you’re willing to watch that kind of content before throwing this movie on. It’s not something you can unsee. Even though I enjoyed this movie overall, I probably would’ve passed on it if I’d known about that scene- it’s just that messed up.
Verdict:
This is a great movie, but the sequence of animal cruelty in it deters me from really recommending this to people. If you want a look at the harsh conditions of the outback, then this is probably the best you could hope for. If you’re looking for a happy adventure film, don’t watch this movie. Though this movie is not at all what I expected it to be, it was incredibly memorable. I’d say watch this film at your own risk; it’s a really good movie, but the content is a bit extreme.
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