Critics All Over The World Are Going Nuts For This New Aussie Western
The first trailer looks amazing.
Venice Film Festival kicked off this week and yeah… you’re going to hear an awful lot about Darren Aronofsky’s mother! in the foreseeable future. But a much less hyped film is also making a significant splash and it’s from one of Australia’s best directors!
Sweet Country is an upcoming Australian feature directed by Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah, We Don’t Need A Map, The Darkside). The film is based on a true story of an Aboriginal man who was arrested for the murder of a white man in the 1920s, after killing the man in self-defence. It’s set in the Northern Territory and stars newbie Hamilton Morris in the lead role alongside a stellar cast including Sam Neill, Ewen Leslie and Bryan Brown.
Discussing the film’s style, Thornton has said he wanted to “use the accessibility of the Western genre for audiences to enter the story and be drawn into this world and experience the issues faced by an occupied people”. “This immersive approach is designed to break down the cultural boundaries between us and bring us together.”
The film is yet to have its Australian premiere, but if the first reviews from Venice are any suggestion, you should be getting pretty excited.
Writing for Variety, Guy Lodge said Sweet Country “has the makings of an international arthouse talking point”. He called the film “clear-eyed, full-hearted” and “beautifully paced”, and labelled it “a furious slavery narrative of sorts”.
David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter was just as glowing, giving particular praise to the work of the less seasoned Aboriginal actors and the cinematography from Thornton and his son. “In terms of its visual command, the movie could hardly be more expressive,” he wrote. “[Thornton’s] connection to the land informs every handsomely composed widescreen image and every measured camera movement… images of rough but imposing terrain, captured in stunning natural light, breathe sweeping epic dimensions into the story’s tragic human conflicts.”
Lee Marshall at Screen Daily has called the film “a milestone for Australian indigenous cinema”. The list goes on:
Sweet Country (Thornton) is an absolute beast of an outback western: lyrical, gaunt, aridly beautiful, morally scorched #Venezia74
— Robbie Collin (@robbiereviews) September 6, 2017
Great films from Australia this year in Venice! I loved Sweet Country by Warwick Thornton.
— Enrico Vannucci (@hypervan) September 6, 2017
SWEET COUNTRY Good-looking Aussie Western crackles with racial unrest burning itself slowly into a predictable finale #Venezia74
— Meredith Taylor (@filmuforia) September 6, 2017
It turns out the film’s racial dynamic is a bit of a revelation for some international viewers too…
Aussies are notoriously racist.
— OskarSwift (@OskarSwift) September 6, 2017
Though we’ll have to wait until Adelaide Film Festival next month to get a proper look at the film, the first trailer has just been released and yep, this should be on your watch list immediately.