Director: Jennifer Kent
136 minutes (18) 2018
Second Sight Blu-ray
Rating: 8/10
Review by Peter Schilling
This Australian period drama, made in a western style, and set on the prison island, Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), is about convict Clare (Irish star Aisling Franciosi, British TV series The Fall). As a servant, she provides the ‘song-bird’ entertainment for colonial troops, but is raped by soldiers, while her husband and baby are murdered. On their trail for revenge, she ventures into the wilderness helped only by native tracker Billy (Baykali Ganambarr). They are troubled by a river-crossing and forced into stealing food, as Clare is haunted by nightmarish grief, and beats an enemy to death, while being stalked by the ‘mad devils’ of a local tribe.
Written by director Jennifer Kent (The Babadook, 2014) this neo-gothic character-portrait is far more than a straightforward Ozploitation action-thriller. Its vivid brutality shows us a violent clash of cultures, as it explores the intersection of rugged mountain bush-lands and desperate feminist survivalism, while also depicting the spiritual rituals of Aboriginal folklore. Here, mortal fears and frantic endurance collide with Clare’s grim determination, armed with an unreliable musket. There’s coincidence spiked with dark humour in several unflinching examinations of racist oppression by British colonialism. Anyone remembering the late Geoff Murphy’s magnificent Utu (1983), about Maori vengeance, should find The Nightingale is a similar movie of powerfully uncompromising themes.
“White-fella way is shit way.”
Peculiarly, the screen ratio is unconventional (1.37:1), and it resembles an old TV-movie. This aspect practically eliminates the landscape views that very often provide a cinematic spectacle in the familiar letterbox frame of widescreen movies, and prompts a tight focus upon the main characters, seemingly trapped within a squarer framing, especially in their many close-ups. What it lacks in stunning vistas of rural scenes, Jennifer Kent’s compelling drama makes up for with its quite theatrical intensity, a searing central performance, boldly poetic images, and graphic displays of horrific tragedy.
Extras:
- Cast & crew interviews
- 2 making-of featurettes
- Bloody White People - video essay (19 mins), historical commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
