In a Savage Land

If you have an interest in the scenery of the Pacific islands, then by all means see this film - there are some wonderful wide-screen images of the islands and their people to be had. Hats off to the crew (the director and camera crew in particular) who worked in tough, often muddy, conditions.

But if you are after an engaging and entertaining story involving characters you can identify with or against, then you're in for a let down. Put simply, "In A Savage Land" drags.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a film with a relaxed pace - not every movie has to be chop-chop, bang-bang. But this film just takes too long to say what it has to say. Even at the Brisbane premiere (the director/co-writer's home town), with an apparently friendly audience, I could hear people fidgeting during some scenes. I don't think it was just the serious subject matter to blame. Many scenes just move too slowly for no apparent reason. Modern audiences don't respond to this.

There is also the problem of the somewhat shallow depictions of the central characters. We never really seem to get to know the central couple, and this was meant to be (I assume) a character piece. Maya Stange's changes in attitude and appearance are just too much to believe, and it was difficult to fathom her motivations. Her husband's views on how to conduct his research and his marriage go past blinkered or even prejudiced, they appear just plain foolish.

The islander characters are even more closed off to the audience, with the unscrupulous traders providing the only real (if limited) insight into their islander ways.

The most obvious place to lay the blame for why the film doesn't work is the script. It seems underdeveloped, though I believe there was much work done in the edit suite during post-production, so it's hard to know what the original script looked like.

All the actors seem to give credible performances, and moments where the performances seem less than impressive seem to be the fault of the script, not the actors. But it's so hard to say, looking in from the outside.

All in all a disappointing film from a very talented writer/director. "In A Savage Land" had a short run in Australian theatres, which is all the more upsetting when you realise it was one of the more expensive Australian films made for several years (around ten million dollars according to the director).

I do regret that for the last few years I haven't lived in Melbourne. Then I might have got to meet the beautiful and talented Maya Stange. She's been treading the boards in the former JeffLand and it would have been a treat to have seen her at work on the stage.

She stars in In A Savage Land. Stange hails from Western Australia and this is her first lead role in a feature film.. But enough of that.

This unfortunate film was made by Australia's Bill Bennet (Kiss or Kill, Spider and Rose, Two If By Sea.)

Bill Bennet had an excellent leading lady in Maya Stange and an equally effective leading man in the fairly ubiquitous Englishman Rufus Sewell, but is hampered by an under worked script for which Bennet and his wife Jennifer, rather ill advisedly also take credit.

In A Savage Land tells the story of a pair of anthropologists (Maya Stange and Martin Donovan) who travel to the Trobriand islands near the then New Guinea. They're fascinated by the reported avid and animated sexual habits the natives are reported to exhibit.

Now this should start ringing alarm bells for mature cinema goers. The topic smacks of immaturity and shallowness, not necessarily, but we've seen cheap, easy sex, or the promise of it, ruin plenty of films before, most recently Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Should Have Been Shut.

Anyway off they go from England to check out the mating habits of the natives, having got married to get the job, establishing along the way some conflict between husband and wife regarding the position of an uppity, bright, modern woman who dares to have her own opinions.

Once they get to the tropics there's some business regarding who's supposed to be having sex with who in the village. Someone becomes offended and a native commits suicide. The white wife goes native and takes up with the local white trader (Rufus Sewell).

A cliched Australian colonial administrator (Max Cullen) and a similarly pat local evangelist (John Howard) make their pompous entries and exits and we find out almost nothing about the natives, or even the anthropologists even when the situation gets muddy and dangerous, and in spite of some spectacular scenery.

The film was reportedly filmed in Niu Guinea under trying circumstances but there seem to be at least a dozen fades to a black screen, a sure sign of a poorly organised effort. This film that could well have been called In A Slight Script.

It's difficult to become involved in a story with as many loose plot ends as this one, even one that stars the very promising Maya Stange.

If you're looking for something a little different and with an unusual setting and story, I'd definitely recommend this. Although filmed under challenging circumstances in a remote part of the world, it is a superb production with great acting performances all round, good direction, visually stunning camera work. Perhaps not one for the average guy, but any gals who like period pieces should really enjoy it.

Visually this is a stunning movie showing the New Guinea landscape in all its glory. I loved the golden look of many scenes. The performances were very good, with Maya Stange a wonderful surprise as the heroine - although her sudden conversion to native and back again was strange to say the least. Bill Bennett has again demonstrated that he is one of Australia's best new directors.

Let's see, we start off with gender issues, spousal domination, economic exploitation, colonialism, church oppression, scientific oppression through cultural arrogance and nationalism. Although, engaging and great to watch the film just tries to cover too much and winds up just giving superficial attention to all these issues.

I always have trouble with films that have an attractive lead actress, who has her hair pulled back and wears glasses when she's supposed to be dowdy or a-sexual. The different transformations of Maya Strang were a bit hard to take and the sequence where she goes native was over the top.

I would have liked better character development and a stronger focus. That said, the film was not a waste of time and Ms Strang is actor to watch.