Film Review: Snowtown

Snowtown. Rated MA15+ (strong themes and violence, sexual violence and coarse language). 120 minutes. Directed by Justin Kurzel. Screenplay by Shaun Grant.

As serial killing sprees always do, the infamous ‘bodies in the barrels’ murders in South Australia have both captivated and repelled our society’s fascination for the evil that men and women are capable of. In Snowtown, Kurzel and Grant hit their marks – absolutely – with an unrelentingly gruelling, shocking and unapologetic study of how the pursuit of deadly intentions can infiltrate a vulnerable community with utterly devastating results.

When the charismatic and resourceful John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) rides into town, his first task is to rid the neighbourhood of the sex-offender who lives across the road from a family of three young boys and their mother Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris). Having earned the admiration and respect of young Jamie Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway) and his two brothers, Bunting’s blood-lusty killer instinct finds a foothold, and before too much longer, perverts, friends and acquaintances are dispatched with alarming precision and a singularly precise motive – they deserve to die.

Magnificently photographed in an uncompromisingly colourless fashion by Animal Kingdom cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, Snowtown is an astonishing feature film debut from Kurzel, and Grant’s screenplay is bone-chilling in both its efficiency and the way in which it refuses to detour from the entirely horrific circumstances in which this fragile community exists.

Ms Harris is brilliant as the complex and tortured matriarch, and without her potent (and often wordless) comprehension of the unravelling horror and her powerlessness to do anything about it, Snowtown would disintegrate into a shocking indulgence. It is one of the best performances in an Australian film – ever. Henshall is magnetic as Bunting, even if his one-note role in the story ultimately becomes (as you might expect) too wearying. Pittaway (pictured) is equally superb as the damaged teenager – whose eyes reveal the dead heart and soul that provides the film with its confronting final shot. The brilliant supporting cast all commit to the story with rare skill and a complete lack of pretension – providing the film with a incredibly confronting level of honesty and authenticity.

Like its step-brother Animal Kingdom, Snowtown represents something of a new maturity in our film culture. It is an often unwatchable, exhausting, cruel and confronting piece of cinema – and should either be seen, or avoided, for precisely those reasons.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.