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Cinema itself started with the western genre of film from 1903’s The Great Train Robbery. This is often considered the first film that attempted to tell a fictitious story and most scholars agree on this. One other thing Australia is not missing out on are the art of rugged outdoors people and its picturesque harsh terrains, but they have never attempted these styles of Australian filmmaking. The closest we have is what could be described as westernish productions like the The Kelly Gang’s Story.
Criminal movies featuring Akubra-wearing gumshoe detectives would certainly gain popularity in Australia, but they have never made Down Under noir films. Australian cinema was languishing in the 40s and 50s. Men like Humphrey Bogart wooing dames and dry-gulching cronies was an age that’s far too recent to be featuring two films per year on average. Whatever happened to two world wars except for completely ignoring Australia from 1952 to 1966?
The story of Mystery Road continues after seven years in the making, and Ivan Sen the writer and director of Goldstone seems to be getting annoyed for Australian filmmakers having to choose between genres to create a movie. Whatever the reason, Australians who wish to explore more from the Down Under will be pleased by this.
“Detective Jay Swan” who is as “drunk as a skunk,” and filled with “weeping pathos” is like Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name.” Jay rides into town ready to change the status quo all because of another “exemplary performance” from star Aaron Pedersen.
The authorities, including the mayor, have a ‘racket’ set up. Maureen (Jacki Weaver, frozen-smile stink-eye mode) tries to maintain control over the out-woop-woop place. Exactly what these authorities are involved in will be revealed later in the story. For now I can say that, for some reason, these people do not wish to have a brave outsider infringed into their integrated ecosystem of corruption.
Everything starts with a girl, in vintage noir fashion. And just like almost every other western novel, it has a couple of prickly supporting characters who are female. Sen illustrates a viciously sexist world where women especially sex workers are stripped down to commodities without any rights or identity.
Swan is trying to find a young Chinese lady who has gone missing, and so he visits Goldstone. In the opening sequence, he is driving a car and is very angry. Swan rides into town on a horse which is actually the back of a police van after being caught by a young local cop named Josh (Alex Russell).
When Josh goes to the pub, Maureen surprises him with a cake, and Weaver’s voice suggests that with the sternish hiss, he should listen to her. She has new information, and that is a new mine-expansion project is is being done and it is in the odds of serious money, hundreds of millions of dollars. However, she notes there’s a catch: it is going to take “blackfella approval”.
Swan, just like the rest of us, receives oodles of “don’t rock the boat” and “keep your head down” directions. And with phrases like this, we just know there is going to be the opposite.
Wenham, wearing a tie and short shirt with rolled socks, certainly doesn’t look in shape, but he plays the head of a mining company at Furnace Creek. Tom E. Lewis plays the role of the extremely Oligarch local Aboriginal land council leader, who is clearly corrupt. But it’s primarily the two leading men, with the unduly simplistic supporting characters (the clever mayor; the shady businessman) serving only as context for them, even though the film’s focus tends to be on them. Mobile sex worker Pinky (Kate Beahan), who appears on the scene in her vintage pink caravan, briefly provides a great contrast to stereotypical portrayals of prostitutes who need saving. Perhaps this could be the story of the second “spiritual sequel.”
As the tension rises, so does the collaboration between Jay and Josh. The frenemy dynamic is strong, and it has to be, otherwise things will get out of hand. As expected, action gets doled out with utmost precision. The revelation of a car chase mid-game elevates the scene to higher levels on an already impressive scale. Sure, there’s a shootout too, but everything is so well-executed, it’s almost uncomfortable. It feels like every bullet and shot is calibrated, counted, and gets registered into your body.
Sen’s cinematography (in addition to writing and directing his films, he also shoots, edits, scores, and sometimes produces them) does not use the orange-baked hot glug glee that became popular after 1971’s Wake in Fright. Goldstone’s colouring goldstone’s colour grading goldstone’s colour grading is sharp and crisp, while the visual makeup with the effortlessly merged aerial drone shots is grand, yet, wired in small details.
It is a stunning looking film, but an even better bigger one to think about. The key to unlocking this immensely ambitious genre hybrid which is classic Australian film and masterpiece of outback noir, is understanding that Goldstone is a country, not a town and its name is Australia.
Sen’s environmental messages arrive with the backdrop of the coal seam gas exploration being a hot election topic, while the allegations of corruption with the mining companies and the land council make it clear that this story cannot be dismissed as mere fiction.
It is important to begin with the images of sepia photographs of the gold rush period. These underline Sen’s social and political commentary which portrays a nation always obsessed with money ever since settlement. A nation that has never been able to, as Midnight Oil might have phrased it, understand something as precious as a hole in the ground. Goldstone emerges from a suite of Australian films like 1932’s On Our Selection, and 1950’s Bitter Springs and The Castle from 1997, which try to capture land ownership in interesting ways. But it has more weight than any of them. The film has more weight than any of them because its spritual roots trace back to the original people of the land. In a small but touching role David Gulpilil plays a man who cannot be bought. He is a man whose soul is connected to the ground and the sky.
Sen seems to be saying people change but systems remain more or less the same. But in that “less” there is something special, even sacred: the bit in life that says there’s something worth fighting for. There is so much to take in, so much to think about amazing film.
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