High Ground

This film is quite disturbing to watch, given the story and its setting against a backdrop of a dark history. I feel so sorry for what happened in the film, I really feel for the victims.

Inspired by real events.

The film is set in the 1930s, North Australia. High Ground follows two men who both have a past filled with pain and hurt. Travis (Simon Baker) is a gun for hire and a skilled bounty hunter. Daily, he is filled with guilt and is haunted by his dark past. He also seeks redemption for his wrongdoings. The second man is a young indigenous man named Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul), whose past includes witnessing his own family get brutally murdered when he was just a young boy. From being a sole survivor as a child, Gutjukwas taken away from his village and put under the care of another. As Gutjuk becomes a young man, he receives word that his uncle, Baywara, is still alive and is currently a wanted man for crimes around the Northern Territory. Now, both Travis and Gutjuk will team up and work together to try to save the last of his family. The question is, can these two men work together, trust one another, and find peace from their dark past?

High Ground is a brutal film and a gritty revenge tale. I cannot deny the film can be unsettling at moments due to the dramatic themes and because its story is based on actual events. The action here is also quite violent and realistic. The visuals and filming style are a knockout. Filming styles, including close-ups and use of drones or overhead shots, have been used to show off Australian landscape and animals. The sound design and effects are brilliant. Sounds such as gunshots and other environmental noises (such as grass, wind, bees, birds) are all positives in the film. The sound effects here also help create added tension and suspense during critical moments.

Performances are solid, particularly from Jacob Junior Nayingul as Gutjak. Gutjak as a character is dealing with many challenges as a young man, along with having to make hard choices such as who can he trust and which side should he take. Other actors including Simon Baker, Jack Thompson, Aaron Pedersen and Callan Mulvey all bring something fresh, and I feel they were rather convincing on screen.

The film begins with a gruesome, heartbreaking first act, and a general plot is set up shortly after. The film's pace for me would best be described as a slow-burning revenge tale, and it is filled with unpredictable and tense moments. The pacing, while it is slow, never felt dull. I will admit there was a moment in the film that felt like a final climax, but to my surprise a final, second climax was yet to come. Some edits also seemed questionable as scenes ended and suddenly cut to a shot of birds flying. Moments like this felt out of place and abrupt. While images of animals certainly look real for most of the film, there was one moment, including flying birds which did make me question if it was CGI and not real.

Overall, this is a gruesome and gritty revenge tale which is based on actual events. The film's plot is engaging and unpredictable. Performances are stable, and the film's visuals along with all the use of sound effects are equally impressive. As the credits rolled, I was generally left feeling rather impressed and touched by what I had witnessed in my cinema. I was also surrounded by the silence of other viewers. While it is filled with unsettling moments, it's certainly an Australian film worth supporting on the big screen.

7.1/10 - Walkden Entertainment

High Ground is going to be inevitably compared to Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale, but both films are ultimately distinguishable. What's clear about High Ground is that it's no easy watch at all. It's a confronting look at post-colonial Australia, the inherent racism and corruption in the Australian law enforcement, and the atrocities committed against Aboriginal Australian tribes. It's important that we reflect on the horrors of our history to learn from our mistakes, so I'm glad that High Ground has a heightened focus on the Indigenous Australian perspective and received a wide release. It's a film that's certainly angry, but it also has important intentions and themes in mind, reminding us how violence begets violence and shows us the consequences of cultural division.

As such, High Ground strives with authenticity and grit. It has excellent acting from first-time performers Jacob Junior Nayinggul, Witiyana Marika and Esmerelda Marimowa, and it's great to see Indigenous Australian representation. There's also equally strong performances from Simon Baker, Callan Mulvey and Jack Thompson, and while Caren Pistorius and Ryan Corr do their best, they are given little material to shine. Andrew Commis's cinematography is spectacular, which highlights the beauty and harsh nature of the Northern Territory, and the decision to include a fully Aboriginal soundtrack is smart. From graceful direction to handsome production values, everyone involved in High Ground worked hard to create a strong representation of Aboriginal culture and it's what shines most in this film.

High Ground's themes were working well for me and I was invested in the buildup... until the last 20 minutes. That's where the tension fizzled out, as the writing lost track of logic, failed to utilise the importance of its character roles and muddled the film's thematic depths to the point that it rubbed me off the wrong way. While I'm starting to see the intentions behind the ending, its sense of incompleteness and narrowness just doesn't sit right and undermines the strengths of High Ground. It was where I realised how much I didn't care about the shallow supporting character work, it messed up the slow burn and there was also questionable editing. It's an ending I found to be so disappointing that it almost ruined the film. Don't get me wrong, High Ground is one of the better Australian films out there that has good intentions in mind and its authenticity and representation are enough to warrant a watch. It has enough to fuel some much-needed conversations in our Australian society, but these could've been driven greatly by a stronger impact, which High Ground doesn't fully reach.

Plot and Characters (5/10) Presentation and Direction (7/10) Acting (9/10) Script (4/10) Setting/Locations (9/10) Tone (8/10) Cinematography/Visuals (8/10) Sound/Music (9/10) Editing (5/10) Pacing/Length (6/10)

Score: 70/100.

LIKES: +Authentic portrayal of Aboriginal culture +Overall powerful presentation +Brilliant performances +Beautiful, harsh locations +Stunning cinematography +Realistic sound design, great music choices +Gritty, bleak tone that provokes the film's themes

DISLIKES: -Disappointing conclusion almost undoes everything -Abrupt, distracting editing -Some shallow character work

There are certain things that will either be enticing to the viewer or annoying to boring. In this case we are talking about a more or less simple story, with clear "bad guys", but also a lot of shading when it comes to the good people (and some of whom we'd call bad). So while we have some cliche and paper thin morals at certain moments, they do not feel fake.

Quite the opposite it feels as real as possible, especially the people who play the natives, who also have different layers to them and different reactions to the invasion and provocation. This really is gritty and therefor not to everyones taste - it does what it says though and in a very engaging way! Not just decent, but really good!

Following on in the footsteps of recent Australian success stories The Dry and Penguin Bloom, locally made feature High Ground continues on a strong showing of home grown offerings that finally seem to point to the Australian film industry once more getting back to a point where we are developing quality products that can compete with worldwide produce.

Directing his first film in 19 years following the release of the well-regarded Indigenous themed Yolngu Boy all the way back in 2001, filmmaker Stephen Johnson does a fantastic job of capturing the time and place of the early 1900's Northern Territory of Australia where a small group of soldiers loyal to crown and country find themselves embroiled in deadly game of cat and mouse between a tribe of Aboriginals that have a right to be seeking retribution following a callous attack on their communities years previously at the hands of white colonials.

Amongst this group of soldiers is Simon Baker's marksman Travis, a kind-hearted if forlorn soul whose rescuing of young indigenous boy Gutjuk comes full circle when the two are asked to join forces to help track down Gutjuk's uncle Baywara who has gathered together a mob that have been responsible for various attacks on white settlements across the land.

Pulling no punches in the way it deals with past horrors and the truth of early settlement in parts of Arnhem Land in this time period, particularly with a haunting and confronting opening act that will leave many viewers reeling from its frankness and rawness, High Ground is a visceral film and perhaps one of the best products yet when it comes to capturing the beautiful but dangerous landscape of the "real" Australia courtesy of Johnson, cinematographer Andrew Commis and an undoubtedly wearied drone operator.

Allowing the sounds and sights of the land to take hold of its story and its viewers, High Ground enraptures with its visual splendor and keen eye but its familiar story and uneasy narrative flow holds it back from becoming the Australian classic it may've been, even if its cast of industry veterans and newcomers all give it there all as we are taken on a story of revenge and soul searching that never surprises in regards too where it heads.

In what is arguably his best big screen role to date, Simon Baker is on fine form as the hard to read Travis, while supports from the likes of Jacob Junior Nayinggul as Gutjuk, Sean Mununggurr as the menacing but rightfully so Baywara and scene stealer Witiyana Marika as Grandfather Dharrpa ensure that this is a showcase for local Indigenous screen talent and recognizable faces such as Callan Mulvey, Jack Thompson and Caren Pistorius round out a top notch Australian based cast.

It's a shame High Ground's various elements never create that magic spark that can be found when the stars align but as an examination of our often unspoken about past and our harsh but spectacular lands, Johnson's film is still to be highly commended.

Final Say -

An at times haunting and captivating Australian film that has an overly familiar narrative and odd flow holding it back from being something truly grand, High Ground is another solid local production from the past few months that goes to show the Aussie film industry is alive and well with talent and stories worth telling.

3 bush plums out of 5