Jindabyne (2007)

Ray Lawrence's Jindabyne is as haunting as motion pictures get, and hasn't left my thoughts since I saw it in a small independently run cinema some ten years ago. When a film is set in Australia, you know right of the bat it's going to have an eerie, striking story to tell. It's a vast, lonely place in areas, full of secrets and unexplored areas. Gabriel Byrne finds himself in a tricky situation of his own doing, playing an Irishman living in a small, isolated fishing village deep in the mountains. While on an expedition with his mates, he comes across something harrowing along a desolate stretch of river: the body of a murdered aboriginal girl. Here's where he makes a fatal mistake.. instead of reporting it instantly, he continues over the weekend with his trip, waits until he's back in town and then notifies the authorities, leaving her right there in the water. Once the details emerge, this causes a royal nightmare of controversy, racial tension and upset, including his wife (Laura Linney) who is horrified by the borderline inaction on his part. Was he wrong? Definitely. These snap decisions during times of great stress are common though, reactionary function not always falling into the place of logic, resulting in a mess such as this. Now as you can tell by my review, most of the film focuses on his actions and their repercussions, not so much on who killed the girl, or why. We see her in an unnerving prologue on some faraway highway, lured to a rest stop by a mysterious trucker, and then we see her alive no more. The trucker appears again throughout the film on the fringes of the main story, but never are we given clarification or catharsis to the murder side of the plot. That to me is an ultimate mood setter and thorn in the side of resolution. The cumulative result of her being found is simply an unrest hanging over the region like a blanket of uncertainty, matters only clouded further by Byrne and the storm he created by not acting right off the bat. Uncomfortable viewing, but beautifully made and not a film one soon forgets after viewing.

An Aussie gem that contrasts heavily dark thematic undertones with the serenely quiet seeming landscape. For movie that has little to do with murder, and more to do with the emotionally strained relationships of the characters within, it is impressive that the filmmakers/screenwriter was able to capture this tension with the minimal use of dialogue.Action was character driven and thought provoking - brilliantly performed. The takes are long in most cases and I can see why some people find this movie slow, but the effect of these longer takes is that it enables a poetic tension to build and allows for performance to take over. In a cinematic world where we are used to rapid cutting, witty fast-paced dialogue and over-used movement shots, it is reassuring to see a film that is successful at achieving an engaging story through employing simplicity.

Starts with great promise about the story of a town now gone and a new town replacing it. The old town is now under water and there are references to zombies by first the father and then friend of the little Tom. The children (Caylin-Calandria) in the film display a lot of crazy behaviou r for no real good reason. One explanation for all of this is to set the scene - but this film, in cinematic terms, is clearly not a thriller and more of an emotional/psychological drama of people who are already mired by problems, having to deal with more.We see elaborate character building in the film and sometimes it is overdone, especially of characters who are not involved in the main plot. There were too many unanswered questions. Why didn't Stewart and his friends worry about their families back home with a killer loose? Why didn't one or two of them get back to the car and call the police? The film then drags on for a bit and ends with more questions. Why does the murderer chase Claire? Why does he watch the funeral? Beautiful symbolisms and the beautiful Australian landscape make for a haunting movie. Really good acting by all actors, more so by Gabriel Byrne who had me completely convinced that reporting that he'd found a dead body four days too late wasn't really their fault.The beautiful song sung by Susan's (Tatea Reilly) sister Ursula Yovich and her superb acting, bought a tear to my eye.Being a lover of stories with a certain amount of structure, Jindabyne left me unsatisfied.

Jindabyne is based upon Raymond Carver's short story, 'So Much Water So Close to Home', memorably filmed previously in a segment in Robert Altman's Short Cuts.A group of men go fishing for a weekend and make a grim discovery, but it is the subsequent decision that they make which will have unforeseen, personal ramifications.Let's cut to the chase. This is an actor's film. It is not about story, though it has depth. The layers exist to provide the stimulus for the actors to explore and delve into. In fact, it is so much of an actor's film that the producers decided to bring in a couple of international stars, Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, to give it the credibility Australians could obviously not provide.Our actors do however, provide solid grounding so that the leads can strut their stuff; Deborra-Lee Furness, John Howard, Leah Purcell, Chris Haywood, even Max Cullen and 'Bud' Tingwell drop in to the Snowy's to add a slice of thespian, though I had to wonder what was the point of all these actors, especially Alice Garner whom I've always found to be rather tedious.The Snowy Mountains is a beautiful part of the world, but Director Ray Lawrence (Bliss, Lantana) isn't interested in landscape, only characters. That's fair enough, but there is almost too much character exploration. We're left wondering where the actual story is. Is it Byrne's relationship with Linney or Linney's relationship with his mother? What's with the weirdo child Caylin-Calandria or the misunderstood school teacher Purcell? Sooner or later, we get some answers but the problem is, it really isn't that interesting and the rest simply serves to confuse.Beatrix Christian works a lot of good scenes into Jindabyne's script, particularly with the magnificent Byrne who deserved his AFI nomination, but there are too many threads left untied and there isn't enough story to sustain its length. It's commendable that Jindabyne strays off the path so often explored, in this case the murder, but it doesn't offer enough of an alternative. Most people have had domestic problems more vivid than this. Other than Byrne's performance, I would recommend revisiting Short Cuts or Lawrence's earlier films, which were so much better than this.