Review: Sweet Country

Few Australian films these days feel relevant let alone essential, but Sweet Country, an outback Western set in 1929, is one of those films. The second narrative feature from Indigenous director Warwick Thornton (Samson & Delilah, 2009), Sweet Country is beautiful, important and utterly gripping, from its first close-up of black tea and white sugar boiling in a billy as racist violence occurs off screen, heard but not seen. The mystery of this conflict, and its eventual consequences, are unspooled in a confident and original narrative that's exciting despite its unhurried bleakness and the intimations of inevitable tragedy.

Inspired by real events, with a screenplay by sound recordist David Tranter and writer Steven McGregor (Redfern Now, The Mystery Road series), the story concerns an Aboriginal stock-hand (Hamilton Morris) on trial for the murder of a white man. Flashing forwards and backwards in time, (sometimes for the briefest of moments, like a flicker of memory or prescience) the film traces the events leading up to the murder, involving the stockman's wife (Natassia Gorey-Furber), a shell-shocked war veteran farmer (Ewen Leslie) and a mischievous mixed-race boy (played by twins Tremayne and Trevon Doolan). We follow the pursuit of the accused man and his wife across vast and stunning landscapes by a bloody-minded police officer (Bryan Brown in fine and familiar form), with a gentle Sam Neill in the role of the kind Christian farmer who employs the accused and tries to be the voice of reason. Matt Day plays the judge sent from the city to preside over the dusty outdoor courtroom. These scenes are stunning in the economy and eloquence with which they depict the absurdities and cruelties of dealing with Indigenous experience within the white legal system.

Thornton is an accomplished DOP as well as director. (His cinematography credits include Radiance and The Sapphires as well as his own shorts, documentaries and features.) Here he gives the impression of simplicity, but using images captured with double-mounted cameras and post-production processing, the grain of natural elements is presented in contrast to the lack of grain in human structures and skin. It's a subtle effect, felt rather than seen, but giving fresh spirit to the much-photographed Northern Territory landscape. Simplicity is evident too in the complete lack of a musical score, and yet this adds rather than detracts from the film's emotional impact.

Sweet Country premiered in September 2017 at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Prize, and went on to win the Platform Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival. Frequently likened to two other excellent Australian films, The Proposition (John Hillcoat, 2005) and The Tracker (Rolf de Heer, 2002 ), Sweet Country is, in its own way, more sophisticated and nuanced than those films, with light and shade in characters on both sides of the racial divide. And while Sweet Country is an angry film, likely to inspire rage and shame in the white viewer, there's something hopeful about seeing a story so well told, and in looking Australian history full in the face.

Sweet Country is in Australian release from 25 January 2018.

Four Stars
Rochelle Siemienowicz