Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
One of the masterpieces of Australian cinema, Wake in Fright, which you can stream on BFI player
was directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff, who would late helm First Blood…
and Weekend at Bernie’s,
and to quote David Stratton, Australian cinema’s greatest champion,
‘It took an outsider to show Australians some ugly home truths.’
‘Could be worse’
'How?’
‘Supply of beer could run out’
When it was released the film was vilified in its homeland for its portrayal of Outback Australians.
It feels like a film in the ‘you’re not from around here’ school of Straw Dogs and Deliverance
and yet, in contrast to those films, when school teacher John Grant winds up stranded in Bundanyabba,
he is met with nothing but hospitality.
‘What about another beer?’
He’s given a place to stay when he loses his money,
food to eat
‘Kangaroo’
and plenty to drink.
‘Beer?’
More than enough really.
‘You need a drink’
'Oh no, water please.'
'Comeon drink it up.'
This is a movie defined by dust and sweat and beer,
so much beer.
In fact, the only time any animosity is shown towards Grant is when he declines a beer.
'Comeon come and have a drink.'
'Look mate, I've given up drinking for a while.'
‘What’s wrong with you, you bastard, why won’t you have a beer with me, I just bought your 50 miles and you won't drink with me.'
’or suggests leaving.
‘Tim, I’ll be moving off now, thanks for your hospitality.'
‘Moving off? Where would you be going lad?’
In some ways they’re a lot nicer to him than he is to them.
‘The aggressive hospitality, the arrogance of stupid people who insist you should be as stupid as they are’
And yet, accurately or not, you identify him as a victim of something – possibly just himself -
in what can be a terrifying film,
as Grant is swept up into this world that repulses yet entices him.
An overwhelmingly male world of bar room violence and outright brutality.
Famously, the kangaroo hunt incorporated documentary footage of an actual hunt
giving the violence a horrific reality because it is real.
And, for me, ‘reality’ is a key word with Wake in Fright.
There are other fine films in this sub-genre, I already mentioned a couple,
but none of them make me believe the way Wake in Fright does,
because what’s happening is not over the top, 90% of it is drinking
most of the rest is beneath the surface, an attitude the characters exude.
‘You clever blokes never like to stop the one spot long, do you?’
You keep waiting for him to do that one thing that will make everyone turn on him,
‘What went wrong?’
but there’s no jump the shark moment where this turns into ‘a movie’.
And I think it was that reality that made it so controversial,
this is not the spiritual Australia of Walkabout or the matey outback of Crocodile Dundee,
no one wants to look in that mirror, and I do think it’s a mirror being held up to humanity in general, not just Australia.
The other thing that gives the film its power is the performances.
Chips Rafferty played against his heroic image as Jock Crawford
and famously insisted on real beer rather than the non-alcoholic he had been given.
'Here you are.'
When director Kotcheff pointed how much he would have to drink, Raffety said
‘You concentrate on the directing, I’ll concentrate on the drinking’.
And apparently drank about 30 pints a day.
Elsewhere top-billed Donald Pleasence gets the showy role but it’s Gary Bond as Grant who holds it together.
‘Just one more spin and you’re out of it’
Believably describing one of the most steeply downhill characters arcs on film,
proving the point that, no matter how superior you think you are the line between you and them is as thin as paper.
Or a glass of beer.
Thanks for watching. What’s your opinion of this great but controversial film
and what are your favourites in the newcomer in a local town horror genre? Let us know in the comments below.