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  Film: The Proposition October 2, 2005 Reporter : Peter Thompson Director: John Hillcoat  It will be surprising if The Proposition doesn't ruffle feathers and get people talking. Like the revisionist westerns of the 1960s (films such as Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch), John Hillcoat's new film paints a dark and violent portrait, not of America's, but of Australia's pioneering past. The Proposition is written by the multi-talented Nick Cave and anyone familiar with his work will know what to expect. He first collaborated with John Hillcoat more than 15 years ago on the extraordinary prison drama Ghosts… of the Civil Dead. And they certainly haven't mellowed much since then. The Propositionis every bit as brutal, but it's also astonishingly beautiful, capturing Australia's most remote desert wildernesses in a story of epic, even mythic dimensions.Banyan is a newly established town in north-west Queensland, serving the needs of graziers and opal miners. But there's a war going on. Marauding groups of Aborigines are resisting the advancing settlers and even fighting each other. And bushrangers are roaming unchecked, stealing and murdering. Police captain Morris Stanley, recently arrived from England with his wife Martha, has declared that he will impose the rule of law. John Hillcoat: "I was thinking of an Australian take on the Western, because there are a lot of similar parallels of a wild frontier … a nation built on extreme conflict and violence and it had the epic landscape, the outlaws, the indigenous population. All those ingredients … the whole broader canvas of Aboriginal conflict, the conflict with the climate, the bushrangers and the British colonial system."  Stanley is fighting on many fronts. Among his antagonists are the Burns brothers. The eldest, Arthur — that's the American actor Danny Huston — is a man capable of lethal, psychotic storms. Charlie (Guy Pearce) has distanced himself from Arthur and is doing his best to protect 14-year-old Mikey, played by Richard Wilson.After a savage gun battle, Stanley captures Charlie and Mikey but he lets Charlie go. The deal is that Charlie can save his young brother's life, but only by killing the fugitive Arthur. Stanley may have done a deal with the devil, creating his own code of frontier justice, but it's with the best of intentions. Above all, he's trying to protect Martha from the harsh realities of this new world. The embattled couple are superbly played by Ray Winstone and Emily Watson. David Wenham brings icy malevolence to landowner Eden Fletcher, who tries to make Stanley follow a ruthless strategy of reciprocal killing. The efforts to subdue the native population descend into a cruel tangle. David Gulpilil is Stanley's main black offsider Jacko, never missing the chance to exploit the white man's ignorance and confusion. And there are echoes of Schepisi's classic drama The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith in the presence of Tommy Lewis, the brilliant star of that film. He's Arthur's accomplice Two Bob. One of the striking features of The Proposition is its sheer scale. It's the most ambitious Australian film since Ned Kelly, but where the latter failed to hold its disparate characters together, The Proposition succeeds brilliantly in creating a believable world. It may share qualities with American westerns but it never once looks like anywhere but the Outback. Designer Chris Kennedy and French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme have brought amazing emotive power to these stunning landscapes. In human terms, the story has the weight, and the cathartic impact, of epic tragedy. Everyone acts for what they believe to be some kind of higher moral purpose but they're unable to foresee the consequences of the events they put in motion. Nick Cave: "What I hope the film generates at the end are periods of intense violence followed by periods of sadness and longing and to me that's something that's reflected in Australia and the Australian Outback."  I've deliberately held back most of the details of the story of The Proposition and much else besides because they carry such impact on the big screen. It's a tremendously violent film but no more so than, say, Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan or Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. What gives The Proposition its emotional power isn't so much what we see but the way Nick Cave and John Hillcoat have reinforced the tragic inevitability of their characters' combined fate. It's obviously not a film for everyone but it's a drama of thrilling power.For movie session times, visit: ninemsn's Movie Guide |
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