Post by wheelspinner on Sept 19, 2009 8:34:58 GMT -5
Van Diemen's Land gets its commercial premiere in Australia next week. It was reviewed in this week's Australian by David Stratton, one of our pre-eminent film reviewers (pretty much our Roger Ebert).
David gave the film 4 stars out of 5 and called it "a film you're unlikely ever to forget".
Escape into a different hell
David Stratton | September 19, 2009
Article from: The Australian
Van Diemen's Land (MA15+)
4 stars
Limited release
I MUST confess to a grim fascination in the gruesome career of colonial Australia's most infamous convict, Alexander Pearce.
Fictionalised versions of his story have appeared in books and songs, and in the silent feature film For the Term of his Natural Life (as well as the television remake). The recent horror film, Dying Breed, is based on the notion that Pearce's feral descendants are still eating people in the depths of the Tasmanian wilderness.
The talented young director of Van Diemen's Land, Jonathan Auf Der Heide, comes from Tasmania and takes the material more seriously. He has been fascinated with Pearce's story for years, and in 2007 he made a short film, Hell's Gates, on the subject, which was well received at the Melbourne International Film Festival and elsewhere. He has now expanded that short into a feature which, without compromises, tells the grim story of the so-called "cannibal convict" against the most stark and spectacular natural backdrops imaginable.
Last week, while writing about Blessed, I ruminated on the fact that, unlike Hollywood films, which generally set out to entertain audiences content to leave their brains at home, Australian films, in common with many of their European and American independent counterparts, seek to challenge and confront. When they do this to little purpose, the result is a turn-off, and we've seen one or two films like that in recent years. But when they successfully tackle powerful subject matter, as Auf Der Heide does here, the result is stimulating, thought-provoking and rewarding.
From the opening images of the movie, as the camera glides above spectacular native forests, you know you're in the hands of a born filmmaker. With the essential collaboration of the gifted cinematographer, Ellery Ryan, Auf Der Heide has created one of the best looking films in a year in which several Australian films have looked magnificent (Last Ride, Beautiful Kate and Blessed among them). The AFI award for cinematography will be unusually interesting this year. Van Diemen's Land derives much of its power from the authenticity of its settings: though some of the film was shot in Victorian wilderness, most of it takes place in Tasmania in winter. As the actors wade naked through obviously chilly rivers, or trudge up rocky paths through snow, the viewer is placed at the centre of this forbidding environment.
Auf Der Heide's aim is to tell on screen, for the first time, the true story of Pearce according to the facts. Between the years 1822 and 1833, isolated Sarah Island, off the west coast of the island explorer Abel Tasman called Van Diemen's Land, was the site of a penal settlement designed to house the worst convicts in the colony, either those who had committed the most violent crimes, or those who had already escaped from other prisons and been recaptured. The only means of access to the island prison, which is located close to the Gordon River, was through a narrow channel known as Hell's Gates. The seas were treacherous and many died during transportation; the remote settlement was surrounded by almost impassable mountains. It became crowded with desperate, miserable men, yet it was unable to feed itself, so malnutrition, scurvy and dysentery quickly took hold. In addition, punishments were severe and the lash frequently administered.
It was from this hell on earth that, in the winter of 1822, eight convicts led by Robert Greenhill (Arthur Angel) broke out of the settlement in an attempt to find freedom. This mixed collection of Gaelic-speaking Irish, Scottish and English fugitives had absolutely no notion of the harshness of the country into which they ventured in a vain attempt to gain freedom, and they soon found nature a more potent enemy than the soldiers and guards they left behind.
The film, scripted by Auf Der Heide and Oscar Redding, who plays Pearce, takes us on their arduous journey, implacably observing the alliances and enmities that form within the group as they become lost and disoriented. Alexander Dalton (Mark Leonard Winter) challenges Greenhill for the leadership, and waiting in the wings is Pearce. As the meagre supplies the escapees brought with them begin to run out, the unthinkable is contemplated: the weakest members of the eight have to be sacrificed to the greater good. The film spares us little in this terrible journey, but at the same time it lucidly explains why it was that Pearce survived to tell the tale and why the others, aware of what their fate was likely to be, didn't try to get away from him. Thus the film poses questions about the lengths, and depths, human beings will go to survive.
It is, indeed, a terrible story, but perversely that story unfolds against some of Australia's most spectacular scenery. And if ever a film was a labour of love, this one clearly is: the actors, all excellent, are obviously undergoing considerable punishment, not to mention the unseen members of the production team, the sound and camera crews and so on. (David will get no argument form Cail there. Slogging up mountains in the snow toting a camera is no joke). Unarguably, Van Diemen's Land poses a formidable challenge for audiences, but it's a challenge well worth meeting and a film you're unlikely ever to forget.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26070468-15803,00.html
David gave the film 4 stars out of 5 and called it "a film you're unlikely ever to forget".
Escape into a different hell
David Stratton | September 19, 2009
Article from: The Australian
Van Diemen's Land (MA15+)
4 stars
Limited release
I MUST confess to a grim fascination in the gruesome career of colonial Australia's most infamous convict, Alexander Pearce.
Fictionalised versions of his story have appeared in books and songs, and in the silent feature film For the Term of his Natural Life (as well as the television remake). The recent horror film, Dying Breed, is based on the notion that Pearce's feral descendants are still eating people in the depths of the Tasmanian wilderness.
The talented young director of Van Diemen's Land, Jonathan Auf Der Heide, comes from Tasmania and takes the material more seriously. He has been fascinated with Pearce's story for years, and in 2007 he made a short film, Hell's Gates, on the subject, which was well received at the Melbourne International Film Festival and elsewhere. He has now expanded that short into a feature which, without compromises, tells the grim story of the so-called "cannibal convict" against the most stark and spectacular natural backdrops imaginable.
Last week, while writing about Blessed, I ruminated on the fact that, unlike Hollywood films, which generally set out to entertain audiences content to leave their brains at home, Australian films, in common with many of their European and American independent counterparts, seek to challenge and confront. When they do this to little purpose, the result is a turn-off, and we've seen one or two films like that in recent years. But when they successfully tackle powerful subject matter, as Auf Der Heide does here, the result is stimulating, thought-provoking and rewarding.
From the opening images of the movie, as the camera glides above spectacular native forests, you know you're in the hands of a born filmmaker. With the essential collaboration of the gifted cinematographer, Ellery Ryan, Auf Der Heide has created one of the best looking films in a year in which several Australian films have looked magnificent (Last Ride, Beautiful Kate and Blessed among them). The AFI award for cinematography will be unusually interesting this year. Van Diemen's Land derives much of its power from the authenticity of its settings: though some of the film was shot in Victorian wilderness, most of it takes place in Tasmania in winter. As the actors wade naked through obviously chilly rivers, or trudge up rocky paths through snow, the viewer is placed at the centre of this forbidding environment.
Auf Der Heide's aim is to tell on screen, for the first time, the true story of Pearce according to the facts. Between the years 1822 and 1833, isolated Sarah Island, off the west coast of the island explorer Abel Tasman called Van Diemen's Land, was the site of a penal settlement designed to house the worst convicts in the colony, either those who had committed the most violent crimes, or those who had already escaped from other prisons and been recaptured. The only means of access to the island prison, which is located close to the Gordon River, was through a narrow channel known as Hell's Gates. The seas were treacherous and many died during transportation; the remote settlement was surrounded by almost impassable mountains. It became crowded with desperate, miserable men, yet it was unable to feed itself, so malnutrition, scurvy and dysentery quickly took hold. In addition, punishments were severe and the lash frequently administered.
It was from this hell on earth that, in the winter of 1822, eight convicts led by Robert Greenhill (Arthur Angel) broke out of the settlement in an attempt to find freedom. This mixed collection of Gaelic-speaking Irish, Scottish and English fugitives had absolutely no notion of the harshness of the country into which they ventured in a vain attempt to gain freedom, and they soon found nature a more potent enemy than the soldiers and guards they left behind.
The film, scripted by Auf Der Heide and Oscar Redding, who plays Pearce, takes us on their arduous journey, implacably observing the alliances and enmities that form within the group as they become lost and disoriented. Alexander Dalton (Mark Leonard Winter) challenges Greenhill for the leadership, and waiting in the wings is Pearce. As the meagre supplies the escapees brought with them begin to run out, the unthinkable is contemplated: the weakest members of the eight have to be sacrificed to the greater good. The film spares us little in this terrible journey, but at the same time it lucidly explains why it was that Pearce survived to tell the tale and why the others, aware of what their fate was likely to be, didn't try to get away from him. Thus the film poses questions about the lengths, and depths, human beings will go to survive.
It is, indeed, a terrible story, but perversely that story unfolds against some of Australia's most spectacular scenery. And if ever a film was a labour of love, this one clearly is: the actors, all excellent, are obviously undergoing considerable punishment, not to mention the unseen members of the production team, the sound and camera crews and so on. (David will get no argument form Cail there. Slogging up mountains in the snow toting a camera is no joke). Unarguably, Van Diemen's Land poses a formidable challenge for audiences, but it's a challenge well worth meeting and a film you're unlikely ever to forget.
www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26070468-15803,00.html
