Wake in Fright (2012)

Being relatively new to world cinema, I find that I often buy films blind, that is with little or no knowledge of the movie prior to my purchase. Such was the case with "Wake in Fright", an Australian film directed by Ted Kotcheff. I bought it solely on the description that it was "one of the seminal" films of modern Australian cinema, alongside "Mad Max" and "Walkabout". I was not disappointed.Gary Bond plays a newly minted schoolteacher, John Grant, sent to the outback to take over a tiny one room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere. It is the last day of the term and school has just let out for the Christmas and New Year break, six weeks of Summer vacation, which Grant plans to spend with his girl back home in Sydney. He hops a train home, but has an overnight layover in Bundanyabba, aka The 'Yabba. One day turns into two and more as Grant falls into an almost Twilight Zone nightmare of drinking and gambling and losing all control. What he discovers along the way will have a lasting impact, to say the least."Wake in Fright" is a brutal watch. It is cruel, and graphic, and lays bare our civilized trappings. I quite liked it. This was a blind buy success. A beautiful, yet difficult, film, with a camera eye view of a culture in one time and place.

Smug and uptight British school teacher John Grant (a fine portrayal by Gary Bond) finds himself stranded in a hellish small town in the Australian outback that's populated by fiercely "friendly" drunken hooligans who eventually push Grant over the edge into madness, despair, and unhindered barbarism.Director Ted Kotcheff evokes a potently unsettling feeling of isolation and vulnerability from the remote rural region setting, maintains an unsparingly bleak tone throughout, and reveals the darker and more disturbing aspects of the rough'n'ready Aussie male character with jolting starkness and a masterful crafting of a gritty, yet surreal and nightmarish mood. The sharp and observant script by Evan Jones offers a bold and unflinching exploration of the dangers of "aggressive hospitality" and the startling extreme lengths hyper-masculine guys will go to in order to prove and assert a sense of virile potency over everything, with a chilling nocturnal kangaroo hunt rating as the definite shocking highlight. Donald Pleasance gives one of his best and most fearless performances as the educated, but slimy and depraved Doc Tyson, who assumes the role as a kind of insane fallen intellectual mentor to Grant as he descends right into the heart of human darkness. Moreover, there are bang-up contributions from Chips Rafferty as amiable constable Jock Crawford, Sylvia Kay as the forlorn and frustrated Janette Hynes, Jack Thompson as the rowdy Dick, Peter Whittle as the loutish Joe, Al Thomas as the jolly Tim, and John Meillon as affable bartender Charlie. Brian West's crisp picturesque cinematography vividly captures both the severe oppressive heat and suffocating backwoods hamlet atmosphere. A riveting and provocative stunner.

Wake in Fright depicts the Australian outback as a hazardous hellhole that swallows up any urban foreigner that wanders through and spits out another of the stereotypical, almost caricatured Aussie battlers. The rural citizen, the blokey larrikin, the ever-drinking womaniser that addresses any problems with a "You'll be right mate", a pat on the shoulder and a cold one. They don't seem to ever do an ounce of work. Most of their vehicles lie in shambles; Grant rationalises this as there being no need to leave once you have settled here, and feels the bonds tighten claustrophobically over his body. All in all, the film's treatment is a little dated. These stereotypes still exist in smaller and less outward forms, but Australia as a whole has become more urbanised, more multicultural, and more diversified. Men are no longer evaluated solely on the sweat on their brow or the amount they can drink (although VB certainly wishes to return to those times, judging by the state of their ads), and homosexuality isn't treated as some sort of terrifying moral degeneracy that is only found when you retreat from the urban into the treacherous rural outback. The style of course treats it like so. The opening shot swivels around 360 and emphasises the never-ending plains, the absence of civilisation and therefore rationality and order. Grant becomes delirious in the gambling den; the edits cycle through a cacophony of men laughing and mocking him, the ceiling lamp's glare beats down on his furiously like the sun, the whole room seems to spin around him. From behind doors eerie red glows reinforced the hellish atmosphere. When he mistakenly hitches a ride back to The Yabba, the soundtrack all but jeers at him before ushering a welcoming arm. For Grant it is the haunted house that has no exit.

I am utterly perplexed by the high praise lavished on the re-issue of this film in 2014. The cinematography is not bad at times - the bar scenes, the gambling and the kangaroo hunt are all quite well done; and the music is effective. Otherwise this film is marred by bad acting, unconvincing episodes, overlong and repetitive scenes and, above all, the lack of interesting or engaging characters. Do we really care what happens to John Grant? Are we allowed any insights into his character, or any of the other stereotypes he meets? Most puzzling is the lack of tension or threat. Wake in fright? - fright of what? At no time is John Grant in any real jeopardy. In sum: of interest as a portrayal of boorish and drunken male culture in 1970s Australia, but of very little value otherwise.