{"id":3181,"date":"2018-03-10T20:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T20:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2018\/03\/10\/sweet-country-review-lean-unfussy-australian-western\/"},"modified":"2018-03-10T20:00:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T20:00:59","slug":"sweet-country-review-lean-unfussy-australian-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2018\/03\/10\/sweet-country-review-lean-unfussy-australian-western\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Country review \u2013 lean, unfussy Australian western"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardian\/ Wendy Ide<\/em><\/p>\n

4 out of 5 stars<\/p>\n

Warwick Thornton adds a mythic edge to his 20s-set outback crime tale.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rangy and lean as a cattle dog, Warwick Thornton\u2019s 1920s-set tale of racial tension and rough justice in Australia\u2019s Northern Territory is an intriguing mongrel mix of cinematic bloodlines. The most obvious influence is the western. When Indigenous Australian farm worker Sam (Hamilton Morris) is forced to shoot a drunken white landowner in self-defence, he and his wife, Lizzie, (Natassia Gorey-Furber) head out into the bush, pursued by dogged lawman Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown) and a posse that includes Sam\u2019s friend and employer, Fred Smith (Sam Neill). The \u201cdecent man forced into violence\u201d is a stalwart of the western tradition \u2013 there\u2019s a touch of the stoic resignation of Gregory Peck in Henry King\u2019s\u00a0The Gunfighter<\/em>\u00a0in Sam\u2019s tacit resourcefulness. But, with a scene featuring a rowdy screening of\u00a0The Story of the Kelly Gang<\/em>\u00a0(thought to be the first feature-length film ever made), Thornton also nods to Australia\u2019s own frontier legends.<\/p>\n

But there is something else: a sparse yet mythic quality that owes a debt both to the oral tradition of the country\u2019s indigenous people and to the religious parables that are a guiding force in the lives of those who fall to the light side of this starkly delineated morality tale.<\/p>\n

A few flash-forward premonitions notwithstanding, this is storytelling with an unfussy directness. Thornton eschews a score, instead foregrounding the sounds of the bush. And the look of the film is as striking as that of his earlier picture\u00a0Samson & Delilah<\/em>. This sweet country leaves its mark on the men who live on it \u2013 clothes, skin, even sky are all smeared with a dust the colour of dried blood.<\/p>\n