Sweet Country. The title comes from how, near the end of the film, one of the white characters describes the tribal land he has crossed. It's a pointed choice of title, the whites have no concept of being interlopers, conquerors, of any kind of relationship existing between the aborigines and the land. They are wrapped up in their cultural stories, and the aboriginal characters are looking on in bemusement, not understanding what is happening as it is outside the terms of their own story.
I suspect this film will trigger acrimonious debates. Some will say that it understates the brutal and destructive nature of the white takeover. Others will claim that it demonstrates the essentially benign, if unequal, relationship between white and black, and that while bad things inevitably happened, good things did too, in spite of the actions of a few bad men. The film does sit on the fence rather, trying perhaps to be historically fair. At the beginning there is a blackfella whitefella balance, imperfect, but maintained. This is upset by the arrival, and this is not a spoiler as it is right up front, of a returned soldier mentally damaged by his experiences on the Western Front. This is historically valid, although he is moving onto an existing property, while generally the post war soldier settlers were given new, empty blocks and a period of supplies.
The story is quite simple, and mostly predictable, in the sense that 'at this point either a or b happens', and the option that keeps the ball rolling is the one that happens. There is only one real 'didn't see that coming' surprise, and it has no direct bearing on the story line, though it does clarify a relationship ambiguity. There is a town, with a hotel. The landlady (Anni Finsterer, I think) is a striking and intriguing character, I assumed she would play a significant role, but she doesn't. Neither does her daughter. Perhaps they are emblematic, there is a hint of that near the end, if you choose to read it that way. This is typical of the film, placement of elements that don't do anything much, except exist.
The telling is chronological with a flashback, a number of 'flash forwards' and some noises off. The 'flash forward' device, of a split second, shows an event that will come later, generating an apprehension that bad things will happen. It may be that the intention is to lend weight to an apprehension that turns out to be mistaken. Either that or it was felt that the story was too boring and needed some help.
While the production looks to my inexpert eye to have taken trouble over period detail, the world depicted is incomplete and inaccurate. There are properties, worked by one white and two or three blacks, situated quite close to each other, people just ride over, which is highly improbable for the Northern Territory. Victoria or Tasmania perhaps. There is no indication of what they are doing, no cows, no sheep, no activity other than the construction of a fence, and the existence of a small melon bed, both of which are plot devices. In reality a property at that time would have supported a small tribe, or mob or whatever, of aborigines, supplying them with flour, sugar, tobacco, and other useful goods, in return for a pool of workers, male and female. These workers would not always be the same people, other duties, hunting, ceremonial and so on, taking priority. Until a judge declared this illegal the setup worked. After that the number of aboriginals employed dropped off, as that kind of regime didn't suit them. The director, Warwick Thornton, is from Alice Springs, I assume he knows hows how it was back then, but I remain sceptical.
Coincidentally or otherwise, the film of We of the Never Never was on TV the other night, and the contrast with Sweet Country is stark. We of the Never Never is, I would say, the better film by far, even though it was toned down from the book for a family audience. The book itself was cut before publication, presumably the truth being too ugly. The film does give a fairly realistic portrayal of day to day life on a Northern Territory station, as far as I can tell. This is where Sweet Country falls down, the environment it shows is purposeless, nobody has a role, they are all, essentially, extras. Even Sam, the main character, exists only so that things can happen to him. So who is the Protagonist? Fate? But events unfold mechanically, there is no Deus ex Machina, except conceivably at the end, and that's a stretch.
I can't fault the acting, the bush setting, some of the cinematography. But what we see is in essence a strip cartoon of illustrative tableaux, akin to the 'mystery pictures' of the early twentieth century, strung together to form a story. In a way it reminds me of McCabe and Mrs Miller, a brilliantly made but depressing Western, but with the difference that what happens is perversely dysfunctional but somehow inevitable. In Sweet Country it's a set-up, like dominoes falling.
There are two distinct locales in the film. There is the 'built environment' - homesteads, the town, the saloon - and the bush. The former, even when evidently on location, very much staged, set-like, reminiscent of old TV cowboy serials, seemed artificially lit, airless, confined. The latter, the bush, was wide, clear, sharp, naturally lit, mostly in South Australia. The two were filmed and directed quite differently, the bush sequences creative and alive, the other stolid and perhaps deliberately archaic.
Am I missing something? Is Sweet Country so clever and referential that it goes right over my Pommie head? And why do I feel someone is trying to sell me a pig in a poke?
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