Review: Snowtown

Review: Snowtown

True-crime tale set in working class Adelaide, South Australia in the 1990s, where John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) enters the lives of young Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) and his mum (Louise Harris). The outwardly affable Bunting has already become a father figure to young Jamie (who has suffered sexual abuse within his family but also via a neighbour), when acting as a sort of community leader, Bunting comes up with a plan to get rid of all the undesirables in the area, paedophiles in particular. Bunting whoops the outraged locals up into such frenzy and homophobic outrage that he’s able to convince several of them to join him in a killing spree. Young Jamie is one such follower. Before long, it’s not just paedophiles being offed, it’s anyone Bunting doesn’t like, and then...well, it just seems like killing for Bunting’s own sick pleasure/drive.

I’ve vaguely heard of John Bunting and the ‘Bodies in the Barrels’ case, one of Australia’s worst serial killing cases. I assume debut director (and co-writer) Justin Kurzel is far more intimately familiar with the case, and indeed this 2011 true crime film was lensed in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, just like the real murders. Unfortunately, it would appear that Kurzel and co-writer Shaun Gran have not taken the rest of us into account because especially in the early going, this is quite a confusingly told film. And that’s a shame because it’s otherwise very well-done and exceptionally unsettling and unpleasantly realistic. It’s a good debut, but a flawed one because Kurzel is a little too close to the material, and wasn’t able to step back and look at things with fresh eyes. It’s not a critical error (I wasn’t asking to be spoon-fed), but it stops the film from being even more impressive than it is. Early on the characters and the relations to one another aren’t really defined at all, to the point where one act of sexual violence may not be recognised as incest, because the characters involved are fuzzily defined up to that point. And that’s just one example. It’s annoying because it just isn’t necessary, and it keeps the audience at arm’s length. But even later in the film when characters are being killed, I found it hard to work out who they actually were at times.

The weird thing is that despite not properly outlining the character relationships, Kurzel does an excellent job in immediately capturing the environment and class (or lack thereof in this case) of the people involved. This isn’t just working class Adelaide (Hell, it could be somewhere close to my hometown of Blacktown, NSW really), it’s feral, practically inbred stuff, forcing audiences to think of the nature vs. nurture debate throughout. These are some truly, truly pathetic people on display here, and the journey may be too much for some to bear (Apparently there were several walkouts in cinemas), and I understand that even if I don’t quite agree. The actors here are mostly either non-professions (young Lucas Pittaway was remarkably hired after being spotted in a shopping mall!) or in their debut film, and every one of them is absolutely authentic. In particular, Louise Harris is astonishingly good as the mother, she just felt so real and identifiable to me. It’s fellow AFI (or whatever its acronym is now) award winner Daniel Henshall, however, whom you’ll find impossible to shake off afterwards as the creepy, soulless Bunting. You’ll have Bunting pegged as a sociopath from moment one, but the key is how Henshall makes him believably charismatic, necessary for us to be convinced that he could brainwash these people. If you take out the more violent aspects of the character, you’ll probably find the character similar to people you may have met in your own life, without ever quite being able to put your finger on it. But then once his true persona really does start to come out, he becomes something completely monstrous, manipulative, and amoral. He’s unglamorous and not terribly sophisticated, but Bunting is shown to be nonetheless charming as a snake. He might be outwardly jovial, but Henshall’s Bunting has the coldest, deadest eyes I have ever seen. It’s a chilling performance, and you can see why no one was willing to cross this guy.

There’s something rather cult-like about the situation, but this is the scummiest, most low-rent cult of all-time. I understand that this film will be too ugly for some to tolerate. It’s not the goriest film of all-time, but it’s got unflinching and harshly realistic/painful/

cruel violence. A kangaroo getting decapitated was likely the tipping point for many, but what were they to do here? It’s an ugly story full of ugly people doing ugly things. If this stuff happened, it happened. Truth be told I was more turned off by the utterly gratuitous full-frontal nudity both male and (obese) female. It added nothing to the film whatsoever, and gratuitous nudity for me is only excused when there’s something gratifying for the audience. i.e. The nudists need to be somewhat attractive at least!

I found it as unremittingly unpleasant as “Precious” (odd comparison to make, yet relevant), but for me as a true crime buff, it’s more interesting. It amazes me how the murders went from killing paedophiles to ‘will anyone miss him?’. I mean, holy shit, this small group of people are the lowest form of humanity. There’s even a point in the film where the young, abused, and impressionable Pittaway can no longer be excused. He’s not a stupid young man. However, one must ask: Would he end up a killer if he hadn’t been in this environment or never met Bunting? I can’t say that he would. But he was in this environment, he did meet Bunting, and he did contribute to the crimes in a way that whilst perhaps understood, can never ever be excused or justified. You don’t end up feeling much sympathy for the kid to be honest.

This is a solid debut and an interesting, compelling, and thoroughly unpleasant story. It’s scary to think that these people existed...and may exist in the future. It has a quietly unsettling, Gus Van Sant (“Elephant” in particular) vibe about it that starts to build. I just wish it were more clearly told to the audience. Special credit must also go to Adam Arkapaw, whose handheld cinematography thankfully never really draws attention to itself for a change.

I have issues with this film, but it has a power that I still haven’t quite shaken. Perhaps I never will. Chilling and effective, if occasionally infuriating.

Rating: B-