Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country is masterly in its serious-minded approach to the depiction and consideration of violence. Set in the Australian Outback in 1929, and inspired by true events, this elegant revisionist western tells the distressing tale of Aboriginal farmworker Sam (Hamilton Morris), who kills an abhorrent white rancher in self-defence, and flees the crime scene for fear of being pegged for murder – a fear that soon proves justified. As a ragtag bunch of local authority figures stalk Sam and his wife across the bleakly beautiful wilderness, Thornton paints an unflattering portrait of modern Australia as a country founded on the tenets of white supremacy. His disorienting use of silent flashbacks and flashforwards lends the film an ominous sense of fatalism, while the passivity of his indigenous characters hints at a harrowing level of systemic abuse. The deliberate pace may prove challenging for some, but this is a richly rewarding and depressingly timely film.
Sweet Country | Directed by Warwick Thornton (Australia 2017) with Hamilton Morris, Sam Neill. Starts September 27.
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