Movie Review: Sweet Country

Sweet Country *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Warwick Thornton.

Written by: Steven McGregor & David Tranter.

Starring: Hamilton Morris (Sam Kelly), Bryan Brown (Sergeant Fletcher), Sam Neill (Fred Smith),Matt Day (Judge Taylor), Trevon Doolan (Philomac), Anni Finsterer (Nell), Natassia Gorey Furber (Lizzie), Gibson John (Archie), Ewen Leslie (Harry March), Thomas M. Wright (Mick Kennedy).

 

Sweet Country is a Western set in Australia that deals explicitly with the long history of colonialism, and is told from the point of view of the Aboriginal People, who have been used and abused by that system. That itself makes it unique – and a welcome addition to the genre that has so often either ignored or demonized Aboriginal peoples, or else sermonized condescendingly on their behalf. Sweet Country acts as a corrective to that – while at the same time, extending humanity to all of its characters, who can be rough and flawed, violent and racist – but also, more than that.

 

The film is set in 1929, in the remote region of Australia. The first white man we meet is Fred Smith (Sam Neill) – who is more enlightened than most, and doesn’t much like when his new neighbor – Harry March (Evan Leslie) shows up and starts asking about his “black stock” – referring to Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris), his wife Lizzie (Natassia Gorey Furber) and their niece – aboriginal workers, who work for Fred, and who he treats fairly nicely. Still, he does “lend” Sam and his services to Harry for a few days – Harry needs helping setting things up, and doesn’t have the workers to do it. Sam brings along his wife and niece to help Harry with his house. Harry repays the favor by sending Sam to a remote part of the land, so he can rape his wife (in a sequence that is done, strikingly, in the darkness). He isn’t done there though – as later, he will think that Sam is hiding another aboriginal worker that Harry has bused – and try to storm in with his gun to kill Sam. With no choice left to him, Sam kills the white man – and with his wife, has to go on the run. Sam knows that no matter what, he will never get a fair shake for killing a white guy. Local army officer, Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown) forms a posse to try and track down Sam and Lizzie – and is determined not to stop until he gets him.

 

Thornton, an Aboriginal filmmaker, doesn’t pull any punches in his depiction of racism and colonialism. Eventually, he will depict – briefly – some of the tribes in Australia, who at that point, still lived on their own – and it’s a marked contrast to people like Sam, who are stuck in a white man’s world that didn’t choose, but now cannot escape. There are notes of Sam Peckinpah and John Ford running through the film Thornton shows both the beauty and brutality of his home country through the film.

 

To me, the film kind of runs out of steam a little bit in its final act. I understand that Thornton and the screenwriters didn’t want a typical Western showdown – High Noon with guns drawn, or a The Searchers type finale. The film turns into a kind of courtroom drama – in which Sam goes on trial – something he doesn’t think will be fair, but also doesn’t think he has a choice. The film shows that he is both right and wrong, in ways he could not imagine. Yet, to me, once everything comes back to town, the film slows down too much –and lacks forward progress. It’s one thing to defy expectations in terms of narrative – it’s another to do so, and stop things dead in its tracks.

 

Still, that’s a minor quibble with what is a very good modern Western – a film that genre buffs will like, because of the way it plays with the genre, and its stereotypes, but also can resonate more because it’s telling a story we’ve seen before in a new way. The Western genre needs new perspectives to stay fresh – and this is one.