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Henry Lawson’s 1892 short story, The Drover’s Wife, tells the tale of a woman dwelling in a rustic rural settler’s cabin in Australia outback during the 19th Century. The woman’s spouse is away for months at a time and when a snake approaches her cabin, she makes sure to protect her children. Historically, this tale has symbolizes the resolve of the white settlers.
Lawson’s story does not specify the name of the woman and instead refers to her in relation to her children and her husband, and of course the snake. In “The Legend of Molly Johnson,” Leah Purcell has remix the story by giving the she character a name, an inner self, as well as a past. Purcell does not only tell us the name of the woman is Molly, but instead argues this story legend from Purcell’s notebook. She brings out the woman’s agency that Molly manages to seize out of the stretching power-bound system.
The term “legend” and the other western tropes hint influence from classics like “fort Apache,” “Rio Bravo” and “The Searchers.” Such films romanticize the two stories as two epic battles and settler fights in the christened wilderness. There’s a spinex position had by the British military officer who is ordered to maintain control in the area. His wife gives him a warning before setting out: “While hunting savages in this land, please do not turn into one.” As this quote suggests, this film engages more critically with issues of humanities masculinity, colonialism, injustice, and mid-century abuse than its predecessors. Jessica De Gouw as Louisa Klintoff plays the military officer’s wife and is a crisp and sympathetic representation of the filmmaker’s and, arguably, our’s hope: “Why can’t women tell these stories?” At the intersection of race, gender, abuse, and historic injustice lies the true question and its answer. The strength and cost of humanity and history is one that the film puts forth for consideration.
Molly is living inside a secluded cabin with her children while her “drover” husband works beside livestock for months.
Purcell judiciously allows her facial close-ups to pass tell the audience more about what truly defines Molly than any action or dialogue could. We first see Molly pointing her gun at an intruder which she does again and again throughout the story. For someone like Molly, who has children to protect, the threat of having her property intruded means she has the right to assume that any person who comes close has malicious intention. Her only course of action is to aim first and fast. “I will shoot you where you stand and I will bury you where you fall,” is what Molly tells one of the trespassers.
In their first encounter, she is the one who takes. In front of her is a wandering bull. She shoots it with no hesitation, as she is ready to make dinner for her children. The next ones coming by, seduced by the smell of the meat, are the Klintoffs, Louisa and her husband Nate (Sam Reid), who have just been really dazed coming from London and seeing Australia. They try to convince Molly that they bring no harm to her, and, as a result, Molly allows them to stay. During the conversation, she decides to trust them in bringing her children to the town for the supplies. And there is another reason, she is about to give birth, and it is better for them not to be there.
As she starts to give birth, yet another intruder sets foot on the site. His name is Yadaka, Rob Collins: a native and a fugitive. Yadaka comes off as threatening, but he extends help instead. She lowers her shotgun. The infant girl is dead and he offers to make the coffin and dig the grave. Out of all the breathtakingly beautiful and strikingly framed images excerpted from the film, one of the most disturbing is, without a doubt, the baby’s grave. Placed beside crude crosses marking the graves of a small child and parent, the newborn rests in peace, a rock with the name “Mary” is the only thing that respectfully identifies her.
Yadaka’s later remarks to Molly’s eldest son, Danny Malachi Dower-Roberts about being a man are the best scenes in the film. Meanwhile, in the town, Nate continues to try and enforce the British laws into a dominion which has none of the customs and practices that support them, Louisa who intends to document her thoughts and what she sees there is unwell. Tensions build in town and some of them spill over into Molly’s cabin. She is determined and unyielding but when her children’s safety is in jeopardy, we witness how strong the clamp is around her and the kind of risk she is willing to take.
The film’s Director of Photography Mark Wareham and Editor Dany Cooper deserve praise, as the story could be told greatly through film by any director. It is telling, however, that Purcell, who has already adapted this story into a novel and play, was so keen to discard this particular method of storytelling and allow the visuals to drive the emotions and nuances of the narrative. Like John Ford and Howard Hawks, she knows how the landscape can frame the struggles of individuals against the harsh physical and cultural milieu. Purcell takes Lawson’s character and breathes life into her, providing a name, a history, an backstory that makes her utterly legendary.
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