Dir. Justin Kurzel, Australia, 2011, 115 mins
Cast: Lucas Pittaway, Daniel Henshall, Louise Harris
Review by Mark Byrnes
Edmund Burke’s oft-cited pronouncement that, for evil to flourish all that is necessary is for good people to do nothing, finds chilling significance in Snowtown, a dramatization of the brutal serial killings that occurred in the sleepy Northern Adelaide suburb of Snowtown, Australia in the early 1990s. For his debut feature director Justin Kurzel and screenwriter Shaun Grant have taken as their point of departure the books Killing for Pleasure by Debi Marshall and The Snowtown Murders by Andrew McGarry, which both document the grisly work of John Bunting and his associates, whose crimes were not uncovered till the discovery by police of several barrels containing human remains in an old bank in 1999.
The film explores how the introspective, sexually abused teenager Jamie Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway), slowly falls under the spell of the charismatic Bunting (Daniel Henshall), who charms his way into Jamie’s family. Alarm bells start to ring when Bunting encourages his young charge to help soil the front porch of a known paedophile using dismembered animal parts. Taken in by his new surrogate father figure, Jamie begins a slow descent into Bunting’s world of indiscriminate, casual violence, which soon finds targets among friends as well as within Jamie’s family.
The ghost of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer looms large over Snowtown, but whereas John McNaughton’s film highlighted in grotesque, forensic detail the violence of its serial killing protagonist, Snowtown is predominantly concerned with documenting as well as asking how such a nightmarish scenario was allowed to happen unchecked for several years. Privileging the perspective of the damaged and ultimately morally compromised Jamie, the audience is faced with uncomfortable questions about what anyone else would have done in his shoes. Kurzel does not proffer easy judgements on Jamie nor of his well-meaning mother Elizabeth (Louise Harris), but prefers to present a very realistic portrait of an insular and unquestioning community that gradually allowed a manipulative, depraved individual to hold court and judgement over many lives.
Opting to work with mostly non-professionals, Kurzel elicits a truly believable and naturalistic set of performances from his cast, with Louise Harris and Lucas Pittaway impressing in their emotionally challenging roles as the mother and son. Henshall as Bunting offers a terrifying take on a truly contradictory individual, who thinks nothing of casually slaughtering his dog, while conversely espousing the virtue of good manners. While the few scenes of Bunting’s violence are undeniably graphic, the film does not thankfully stray into the borderline gratuitousness of the aforementioned Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Kurzel’s patient and judicious direction delivers a truly remarkable and nightmarish tale, which suggests that there is a deeper malaise within society, if any sense can be made of the events in Snowtown.
xx - posted on 23/05/2012 13:13:28
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[...] Snowtown (18) | Close-Up Film Review Dir. Justin Kurzel, Australia, 2011, 115 mins Cast: Lucas Pittaway, Daniel Henshall, Louise Harris Review by Mark Byrnes Edmund Burke’s oft-cited pronouncement that, for evil to flourish all that is necessary … Source: http://www.close-upfilm.com [...]