Snowtown (2011) - Justin Kurzel

Synopsis:

After being sexually abused through his childhood, Jamie now 16 befriends his mums new boyfriend John and a rowdy crowd of neighbourhood watchmen. However, this friendship leads Jamie into a much more sinister realm of vigilante justice.

The biggest thing I learnt about Snowtown is that it is certainly not for the faint of heart. Where it isn't on an exploitation level parallel to that of Irreversible by Gaspar Noe or something you'd find in the Saw franchise, things still get very grim. It's even cleverly made to feel more brutal than it actually looks, it's gore overshadowed by the need to tackle deep, personal and most frighteningly of all, very real subject matter. Added to that we as an audience are left with an uncomfortable uncertainty throughout.

This is not a negative however, the makers of the film toy around with character archetypes more efficiently than a professor in maths would toy around with a 5 year old's maths problems. Something quite special to watch and something that reminds us that in the real world lines of good and bad are not nearly as clear cut as Hollywood would at times make out. At one point you feel sorry for the protagonist, Jamie, the next you're thinking, “why are you so weak? stand up for yourself”. Then you find yourself falling for the charm of Australia's most prolific serial killer, John Bunting, and genuinely think this guy can do no wrong. Then the madness starts and you go along with him, given the general consensus that paedophiles deserve everything they get in this film. But even then we switch back, given the nature of the murders, you begin to feel sorry for societies lowest of the low. It's a marvellous little twist as the mirror is placed right in front of you. We can say “Oh yeah, I want to kill that guy” and can list off a list as long as the Torah as to the different ways you'd go about doing it, but when you're faced with the opportunity to do to a paedophile what they deserve, can you match their cruelty? I'll let you make your own mind up. Later though we switch again, and we begin to doubt John, and you begin to hate him, but you don't want to. I mean this is a menace for crying out loud! A ruthless killing machine, and we are here making excuses for him! You'll find yourself constantly flip flopping throughout which keeps the films interest at an all time high.

Next we've got to talk about performances, and to be fair everyone plays their roles brilliantly, something which is essential for a film that's trying to make a statement. Lucas Pittaway is an absolute star and I hope this film allows him to breakout. To be honest he looks like he should play more of a thug role but he's able to switch it up here and make you believe that he's this very timid young man, scared, and looking for a bit of guidance. I think he should have been given more dialogue and the only real issue I had with the film was the lack of talking. Just a lot of looks. I suspect that it probably helped add to the unsure atmosphere, but to be honest, no matter who you are, if you walk outside and see a man you met the other day chopping up a couple dead kangaroos in your back garden... you're going to want to ask “what are you doing?”. You'll find this happens a lot throughout the film and you'll be wanting to ask questions but they wont ask them. I mean they will be answered and you'll follow it easily enough I just feel it takes away from the realism.

You can see that Jamie is a good kid, an honest child who doesn't like the way he's been abused in life but is too soft to do anything about it. If anything he seems to just be looking for acceptance, unfortunately he finds that acceptance with a gang of serial killers. But then this is just another issue raised by the filmmakers. You see these kids on the streets rolling with gangs and we wonder what could have been if they hadn't found friendships and acceptance within those groups... well, just be thankful they didn't end up with this group, who's motives appear benevolent at first but become nasty... and again, the lines drawn between good and bad being blurred until it becomes unbridled carnage.

Overview:

Where I know this film isn't 100% accurate to the real life events, it's still able to tell it's own stories, making valid points to do with society and bringing to question the very depths of the viewers morality.

Rating:

★★★★