For finishing my cinema essay on time, I decided to reward myself by going to see Justin Kurzel's Snowtown at the Nova on Lygon St. I now realize that this is not the best sort of movie for a reward.
Snowtown is a mind-numbing, toe-curling, wife-beater of a movie. You walk in super excited at seeing a movie so many people are speaking so highly of and you walk out feeling like someone pushed you off the rocks at Cott beach into 5m surf without a life vest. In other words, you feel as beat up as the victims depicted in the movie.
Don't be put off by this however. This is just what makes this movie so great. For a movie to make you feel so many different emotions in one hit is pure genius. I couldn't help but be reminded of David Michod's Animal Kingdom, another great Aussie film that plays with your emotions like a cat with it's prey.
Snowtown details the dramatic events of the early to late 90s when John Bunting committed over 11 murders with the assistance of his friend Robert Wagner and the unintentional involvement of James Vlassikas, the son of Bunting's love internet, Elizabeth Harvey. The murders were gruesome, with the details remaining sealed until a suppression order was lifted at the request of the filmmakers in 2010.
The film depicts the lives of these people involved in the most real and gritty way I have ever seen achieved in film before. Beginning in a manner similar to a series of vignettes, we are introduced to the small town of Salisbury North, the real locations of the original murders. The shots are beautifully constructed which is one of the reasons Snowtown is so sickening. One moment you are watching this amazing photographic montage. The next, some guy is getting beaten to a pulp.
Justin Kurzel and Shaun Grant are super lucky that they had Lucas Pittaway and Daniel Henshall on board to depict Vkassikis and Bunting. Henshall in particular is just as haunting as Ben Mendelsohn in Animal Kingdom and I apologize for comparing the two films so much but there are a lot of similarities. Unfortunately, this is my one criticism of Snowtown. I don't know how they could have dealt with the subject matter any differently from how they did but to me it just felt a little too much like Australia's other successful psychological thriller. A solution may have been to have held off the release for another year when the effect of AK had died down a bit.
Other than that, Snowtown is truly a brilliant film. It was made the way Australians know how to make films best - by torturing the audience until they squirm in their seats but hooks them in so that they know they won't be able to leave until the end. Don't be put off by me or any other critics for that matter. Go and see this film and prepare for the ride of your life.
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