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Justin Kurzel’s true-crime drama Snowtown sometimes feels like a self-conscious attempt to subvert every last sun-kissed image and happy-go-lucky sound we associate with Australia. It opens as a deceptively low-key, naturalistic study of life in a working-class district in the late 1990s. A single mother with more kids than space to put them in enlists a friendly older neighbour to look after her boys for the night. Little does she realise this man will spend the evening taking nude Polaroids of his charges. We’re not on Ramsay Street any more, Toto. Be warned: it gets grimmer yet. One of the teenagers, the sensitive Jamie (Lucas Pittaway), wakes to find mum’s new boyfriend John (Daniel Henshall) chopping up kangaroos in order to douse their entrails over the pederast’s front porch. Oldest son Troy (Anthony Groves) challenges Jamie to a wrestling match, only for their intra-sibling rough-housing to turn to hierarchy-enforcing sodomy. All this playing out to the gentle rhythms of a television cricket commentary. What next, we wonder – Clive James assaulting the band Men at Work with a didgeridoo? I jest – you have to here – but Snowtown retains a seriousness of purpose that keeps one gripped for a good while. When John vows to make a man out of Jamie, heads get shaved, the drug use ratchets up, and we intuit – if we hadn’t already – that everything’s likely to turn out somewhat less than bonzer. The extras sport the grimy authenticity one might get from holding casting calls under a rock. Upfront, meanwhile, Henshall demonstrates a chilling intensity, giving the viewer the terrible sensation that John is capable of doing anything at any moment. Kurzel’s impressive control wavers in places, though. Those scenes goading actual Snowtown locals into an improvised paedophile-baiting around the family’s kitchen table feel rather exploitative, in their illustration of a particular mentality and complicity. Indeed, too often one catches the film punching at our disgust buttons. Kurzel tools it for shock value, throwing up his hands at violence even as – in one pivotal torture sequence – his camera lingers on shots of a nail being prised from a toe. Snowtown has 40 minutes left at this point, and you come to sense it bashing you about the head from here on in. Most viewers, even hardened critics, have emerged traumatised, and that bluntness is both its strength and a liability. Kurzel can’t resist placing Jamie at a clangingly literal crossroads ahead of the final mise en abyme. It’s a forceful debut, nevertheless: compelling and problematic in equal measure, and a worthy successor to the Ozploitation likes of Romper Stomper and Chopper – its uneasy bedfellows in that category of Films to Make You Go Strewth.Read full review
Terrible film. The acting is laughable, direction is all over the place, lacking in plot. Imagine a home-movie shot by disturbed adolescents in a filthy static-caravan inhabited by the dregs of humanity. Watch it if you're having trouble sleeping...
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Very happy. thanks
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
A shocking film documenting Australia's worst serial killer, John Bunting - a sadistic, hateful and vicious predator. He and his accomplices preyed upon paedophiles, both imagined and real, gay men, disabled people for both pleasure and to draw money using their bank cards. The victims were brutally tortured both to extract the victim's pin number but also for pleasure. Sadly, the film only loosely covers the facts of the true events of the crimes, leaving out many of the relevant facts. For example, the mother, depicted as a meek woman who knew nothing of the murders, actually helped participate in them! The film holds your attention however and the acting is brilliant. Not for the weak-hearted!