Lucky Country

I took my son to see this movie at the Australian Cinema Festival at the London Barbican earlier this year and we were both really moved by it. The entire theatre was gasping for breath at the end and many had tears in their eyes. Very powerful stuff. We immediately ordered the DVD to share with friends here.

I felt compelled to write a review after seeing an earlier posting and reading back through some of the reviews of the film on other sites, to find either thoughtful praise on the one hand or vitriolic ranting on the other, and this was a curious thing because it's really a very simple, powerful film.

I'm old enough to remember the reactions to Wake in Fright. Now regarded as an Australian classic the first responses were an explosion of anger. I left Australia for the UK a few years after and always felt that we had an almost pathological inability as a nation to shine a light on ourselves, and that's really what this film is doing. Being a regular at the London Australian Film Festival I've watched with some pride the change happening with brave independent films over the last few years, scratching at the surface of the Australian national psyche, and was very saddened to find in some of the Australian reviews the same old knee-jerk disdain for intellect and anything that doesn't paint the country in a noble light. Certainly the multiple ironies at work in the character who says the wonderful line 'bet you thought it was going to be all Henry bloody Lawson' seem to have gone over the heads of some people.

Watching the DVD extras I found there was a different opening that was taken out - why isn't explained - that sets up the characters better: the mother is present in the original and the film now appears to start ten minutes in. This may help some people access the film a little easier, but regardless of this the film works so magnificently as a dark, visceral thriller anyway that it's really hard to see how people could have a hard time with it unless they're responding with a political agenda.

I notice that Christos Tsiolkas is receiving the same kind of responses for The Slap and in an interview in today's Guardian he celebrates this, saying that if you can move an audience to those extremes of anger on one side and thoughtful praise on the other you're doing something right because you're forcing people's insecurities to the surface. The filmmakers of Lucky Country should be equally proud and I wouldn't be at all surprised if this brave film finds itself being lauded in a few years' time in the same way Wake in Fright has been.

For anybody interested in a genuinely thoughtful dialogue about Australia and Australians' place in it this really is a must-see. And if you happen to like unusual thrillers with great visual beauty and a considerable amount of menace this film is for you.

A young boy learns what it means to be a man. This is the summary that I gleaned from watching. I believe the focus is to be on the boy the whole movie. He learns from his dad. He learns from the strangers. He learns from his sister. You must keep your focus on the boy, or the movie can be a bore and you can end up mislead. He trusted the strangers, but got betrayed. His trust came back full circle with his dad. He learns from the guy at the end of the movie what it means to be a man. You know he learned what it means to be a man by his last look in the movie. Look at his eyes. He has the eye of the tiger. Fear has been removed. He lived his life in fear, and now he has courage to face anything because he's been through everything.

This film was seriously the worst that I had seen all year, my house-mate brought it home from the library as he wants to be a film maker and so is among the only demographic that forces themselves to watch Australian movies. This one danced across the spectrum- from laughable to absurd to simply pointless. It was a very transparent film that clearly showed the screenwriter as a troglodyte-pseudo-intellectual, who reads himself to confidence, then falsely assigns himself the role of preacher, peppering the screenplay with little sweet-nothings that are so trivial and out of place, even the lowly bushmen I imagine the film was made for will be deterred.

There are some beautiful one-liners in there that the director really had no excuse to keep from the cutting room floor, namely "What is it little-man? You think you've got what it takes!?" , as well as a character who has a real misunderstanding of Henry Lawson's poetry to share with the world, implying that it was romantic and idealistic, where even the free internet encyclopedia knows better-

"Lawson had no romantic illusions about a 'rural idyll'."[7] As Elder continues, his grim view of the outback was far removed from "the romantic idyll of brave horsemen and beautiful scenery depicted in the poetry of 'The Banjo' Paterson".

add to that a thick layer of repetitive religious rubbish and just about every poorly-written, poorly-timed interaction that the characters share, and you get a film that was very unfair on the actors who trusted the writer/ director, and tried their hardest.

yep, a real piece of work.

Nat was a teacher in London, but he has taken his young son Tom and his daughter Sarah to remote Australia. I would hesitate to use the word "Outback" because there are lots of trees. Nat recently lost his wife and the family is struggling (while Connolly, who owns all the land around, is doing quite well) but Nat always has faith that God will provide. Sarah is old enough to marry and she wants to leave, but Nat will not let her go because he needs her.

Three men who have fought in the Boer War show up. Jimmy is near death and his companions Henry and Carver feel very fortunate to have found shelter and the possibility they can save Jimmy's life. Nat is eager to help the group, and Sarah reluctantly nurses Jimmy back to health. But the men have other expectations and don't intend to leave just because Jimmy gets better. Henry wants to teach Tom to be a man, though Nat is reluctant for the boy to learn Henry's values.

When gold is involved, the family might be in danger, because Carver in particular can be violent if he wants something.

So will this family get out of their predicament?

There are a lot of strong performances here, particularly from Pip Miller as Henry and Toby Wallace as Tom. The writers do not give us nice pleasant solutions. In fact, they give us a number of moral dilemmas (including justifying cruel behavior because God says it's all right) and complicated situations, not to mention unexpected plot twists. If you're looking for a warm and fuzzy family film, look somewhere else.

One quality of the film stood out--regardless of his actions, Henry seems like a nice person a lot of the time, but he frequently proves that whether it was thew war or whatever, he's not nice.

Tom and Sarah are both strong and caring, though Sarah is like a lot of girls her age even today--she wants to get out of this place. Tom is not all that tough, but he seems open to learning to be.

Is it worthwhile? If you're looking for quality and not escapist entertainment, sure.

Screenwriter Andy Cox proves here that you can make an effective film from a very simple but powerful theme. The script is superbly executed with strong dialogue and many plot twists and turns that keep the audience interested. The direction makes the audience feel like they are actually in the film through the use of closeups and hand held shots and the cinematography certainly takes advantage of the Australian outback. The performances from the cast were strong and I was particularly impressed by newcomer Toby Wallace. I also really liked the ending of this movie because it was different from other movies, ie it leaves you guessing what might happen from then on.