Since I was a kid I've had a recurring dream of being on a beach, in light so bright I can barely open my eyes to see. This newly released on DVD classic of Australian cinema somehow captures that feeling - everything is yellow, red, light disturbs the characters, scrutinising their dark, more brutal sides. I've waited years to see Ted Kotcheff's film, and finally tracked it down on DVD. No lesser figures than Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford and Fred Schepisi regard Wake in Fright as the film that sparked the 1970s reniassance in Australian film making. The Cannes Film Festival has only ever screened two films twice: Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Kotcheff's Wake in Fright.
Though a critical success, it was apparently met by ambivalent public acclaim in Australia, with some audiences taking it all too personally, and a general feeling of "this isn't us". It certainly shines a light on male-dominated frontier towns of rural Australia - where men outnumber women and the stranger creates a rip in the fabric.
The performances are outstanding: as one critic rightly put it, Chips Rafferty as the local cop - in his final screen role before his death in 1971 - "exudes an unnerving intensity with a deceptively menacing and disturbing performance that ranks among the best of his career." Donald Pleasance is brilliant as an alcoholic doctor - and also claims my "best Australian accent by a foreign actor" award. Jack Thompson, Gary Bond and John Meillon round out the Australian all-star cast. This one will stay with me for a while. Would love to see it on the big screen.
4 comments:
Wake in Fright is magic realism. Wake in Fright's central idea is that in certain parts of Australia (and surely elsewhere), away from cities, there can be a "magnetic" metaphysical anomaly that keeps people tethered in place is spite of a lot of good reasons why they should leave - inexplicably they can't, hence the nightmare.
The longer you stay there the more difficult it is to escape this gravitational pull, and soon, like Doc, you look back on a weirdly wasted lifetime. This becomes the in-joke of The Yabba where Wake in Fright takes place.
I spent 1969 in a mining camp just south of Darwin near Pine Creek and what happened to me was similar, including the spotlight shoot.
When I first arrived in the Top End people asked me how long I was staying - this was trick question - I said: until the Wet, it would be about 9 months; I was there to get a quick quid and get out. They looked at each other winked and laughed. Everyone arrived there just for a few months and end up staying 20 years.
The metaphysical reality layer superimposed on mundane reality (nothing is quite what it seems) brings with it the temptation to step away from normally accepted social mores.
In 1970 Australia was still rather Victorian in its outlook on the surface. But the more pissed you got, the wider the two realities moved apart. All sorts of things could be countenanced, including murder (if it was deserved), hence, out there another set of moral and legal rules kicked in. Hence the ambiguous and ambivalent character of the police sergeant played by Rafferty. Rafferty the actor no doubt perfectly well understood the metaphysical reality, as many Australians in the outback experienced it themselves as I did.
Films made around then dealt with that metaphysical duality were: Cars That Ate Paris, Homesdale, Picnic at Hanging Rock, and The Last Wave, probably others.
This other world is now much submerged and a lot of people do not understand what is being discussed in Wake in Fright. Therefore they waffle on, not being aware that it is a documentary. And not seeing why a lot of Australians found the film uncomfortable at the time - they knew what it revealed and they wished it was kept under wraps, especially to outsiders.
That's an interesting comment Sir Henry, which is probably best described as a post in its own right. Ill respond when I get more time - but in the meantime - any objection to me posting that on the blog under its own thread?
No worries. I'd just like to add that Chips Rafferty was actually born and bred in Broken Hill (the real Yabba), so my comment about him being intuitively attuned to the inner truth of his character Sgt Jock Crawford is underscored.
Kate Jennings has an interesting essay on the Wake in Fright in The Monthly see:
http://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-kate-jennings-home-truths-revisiting-039wake-fright039-1779
Thanks Sir Henry. I've been meaning to get this movie out on DVD for a while now, so I'll definitely watch it now!
Sounds great from your description!
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