A first rate modern thriller using old Western movie tropes. Nick Parson's script is unnecessarily complicated but is based on actual events from the 1930s and may have accommodated these in all of their intricacies. Of course there is also the business of him adapting his own play Dead Heart for the screen. These points aside this is a first rate movie about the clash between white Australians and black Australians. It is about violence, cultural clashes, bigotry and ignorance.
For those who aren't quite up to speed: the hereditary line of indigenous leading men goes David Gulpilil (not in this movie), Ernie Dingo and Aaron Pederson. To have two of our finest in the one movie along Bryan Brown is quite something. Brown is his own man but if you wanted an American parallel he is sort of like David Morse but with more charisma. He is also an actor without parallel.
Any way, back to the film. Pederson's character has an affair with the wife of the local school-teacher played by Angie Milliken. They are caught on sacred ground and this provides the conflict which drama can't exist without.
We know consequences are going to be serious because John Jarrett, of Wolf Creek notoriety, quickly becomes involved.
Stephan Ray captures the subtle and not so subtle auditory nuance with aplomb. The Aboriginal actors when speaking English, might have been picked up with greater intensity as they can be little muffled when speaking English, a second language for some. Cinematographer, James Bartle, captures the, 'dry, dry as dust country, picture drought, dust and heat' feel of Wala Wala accurately and beautifully.
I saw a little more of Pederson than I felt comfortable with, he being a past English student of mine but there is no doubt that the seeds of the brilliant actor he has become can be clearly seen.
In short, this is not one to be missed.
