True History of the Kelly Gang. (18.)
Directed by Justin Kurzel.
Starring George MacKay, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Orlando Schwerdt, Thomasin McKenzie, Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe. 125 mins.
This version of author Peter Carey's version of the life of Ned Kelly has little concern for Truth or Story. Instead, Kurzel batters audience with a punk rock assault of demented, brutish, garish, incoherent rage.
Despite its potential, the vegemite western never really took off. Aussie filmmakers have generally prefered to look to the future for their wild west extremities. Kurzel's birth of the nation takes place in a landscape as stark and barren as any Fury Road post-apocalypse. (Poignantly, given their bush fire summer, every tree is burnt out.) A recurring image is a figure on horseback, often wearing a dress but rarely female, riding across a lifeless terrain, often at night with a searchlight tracking them from above.
Another holdback for Aussie westerns is that the nation only has one infamous outlaw figure, though they have worked overtime mythologising him, turning him into their own Robin Hood. Our Kelly (Mackay, who bears some resemblance to previous big-screen Kellys Heath Ledger and Mick Jagger) is the son of Irish immigrants who is messed up by a mad mum (Davies.) She turns down an offer of a free education for the young Kelly (Schwerdt) and instead sells him to criminal Harry Power (Crowe) to teach him the ways of the world.
The story here isn't really told, more alluded to. You guess that this might have been edited down from a much longer film because often the scenes don't fully connect. It's unusual for there to be a moment where the viewer is totally sure of where we are, who everybody is, or why things are being done. The film works at cross purposes unsure of whether it is trying to strip the mythology away to show the tawdry reality, or celebrate Kelly's hero status.
The origins of modern Australia is presented as a melee of underage prostitution, mullets and transvestism. A decade ago another Australian, Andrew Dominik, took a turn at the wild west in The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Bob Ford, and Jurzel's film is almost as beautiful but without the wistful elegiac feel. Maybe it is more like Scorsese's original conception for Gangs Of New York, a burst of savagery conducted in dandy outfits. Either way, it's a mad spectacle.
Directed by Justin Kurzel.
Starring George MacKay, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Orlando Schwerdt, Thomasin McKenzie, Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe. 125 mins.
This version of author Peter Carey's version of the life of Ned Kelly has little concern for Truth or Story. Instead, Kurzel batters audience with a punk rock assault of demented, brutish, garish, incoherent rage.
Despite its potential, the vegemite western never really took off. Aussie filmmakers have generally prefered to look to the future for their wild west extremities. Kurzel's birth of the nation takes place in a landscape as stark and barren as any Fury Road post-apocalypse. (Poignantly, given their bush fire summer, every tree is burnt out.) A recurring image is a figure on horseback, often wearing a dress but rarely female, riding across a lifeless terrain, often at night with a searchlight tracking them from above.
Another holdback for Aussie westerns is that the nation only has one infamous outlaw figure, though they have worked overtime mythologising him, turning him into their own Robin Hood. Our Kelly (Mackay, who bears some resemblance to previous big-screen Kellys Heath Ledger and Mick Jagger) is the son of Irish immigrants who is messed up by a mad mum (Davies.) She turns down an offer of a free education for the young Kelly (Schwerdt) and instead sells him to criminal Harry Power (Crowe) to teach him the ways of the world.
The story here isn't really told, more alluded to. You guess that this might have been edited down from a much longer film because often the scenes don't fully connect. It's unusual for there to be a moment where the viewer is totally sure of where we are, who everybody is, or why things are being done. The film works at cross purposes unsure of whether it is trying to strip the mythology away to show the tawdry reality, or celebrate Kelly's hero status.
The origins of modern Australia is presented as a melee of underage prostitution, mullets and transvestism. A decade ago another Australian, Andrew Dominik, took a turn at the wild west in The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Bob Ford, and Jurzel's film is almost as beautiful but without the wistful elegiac feel. Maybe it is more like Scorsese's original conception for Gangs Of New York, a burst of savagery conducted in dandy outfits. Either way, it's a mad spectacle.
