Snowtown

Yay me! I've finished exams, that's why I didn't post anything last week and now I've got a few weeks before next semester to catch up on some missed flicks and find a few other ways to kill time...
First-time feature film writer/director Justin Kurzel has co-written a film with Shaun Grant (Killing Time) about a very dark chapter in Australia's recent history. We've had many serial killers in our wide, brown land throughout the years - John Bunting is one of the worst we've seen. Yes, fellow reader, this film is based on a true story.
Snowtown is a quite suburb north of Adelaide, South Australia. Single mum Lizzy (Louise Harris) lives at home looking after her three sons, the eldest is Jamie Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway). Jamie was diagnosed with schizophrenia a few years back. He doesn't work. He doesn't do much at all. One day a family friend who is babysitting the boys, takes photographs of them naked. Lizzy finds out, goes across the road to his house, and kicks the shit out of him. Lizzy tells the police but he gets off on bail. Justice has failed.
Lizzy starts seeing John (Daniel Henshall - Rescue Special Ops). John is charismatic, charming, and highly opinionated - a true psychopath if there ever was one. John starts taunting Lizzy's paedophile neighbour and he soon moves out.
Around the table with friends, John starts talking about what he would do with all the sex offenders in the neighbourhood with his own style of vigilante justice. If the police won't clean up the streets and protect the children from these perverted criminals, then who else will? He brags while others chip in similar ideas.
Jamie and John start spending a lot of time together - maybe John seems like a father to Jamie, something he hasn't had in a while. They bond over shaving each other's heads. Soon John starts digging a hole in the backyard. He tells his mates he's thinking of extending the house.
One night John shows Jamie the dead body of one of Jamie's drug addict friends lying underneath a tarp. Soon John and one of his mates have the dregs of the suburbs handcuffed to his bathtub and Jamie soon joins in. John makes them say things into a tape recorder which John edits on his computer. They are phone messages to loved ones telling them not to try to find those that will not be found... not for a while anyway.
I can see why people left the cinema throughout this film, the violence is very graphic as Kurzel makes witnesses out of the audience. A shot of a bloodied bathtub was enough to make a couple behind me tut with disgust. It's easy to see why Jamie went down this path, he seems so pathetic, so malleable, so eager to please.
Performances all round are superb, Kurzel has a relatively unknown cast here and greatness comes from each one of them. Pittaway is outstanding - reminiscent of James Frecheville in Animal Kingdom, another unknown who is now very well known.
The soundtrack is haunting, mesmerising, it couples so well with the panoramic shots of the South Australian countryside. It would be so peaceful if it weren't for it's inhabitants.
I couldn't help think of The Castle when John and co were digging in the backyard... 'Dale dug a hole!'
Like Animal Kingdom, this is another must-see Aussie flick that exposes that dark underbelly that our television networks so love to flaunt and glamourise. But it is not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach.
Things I learnt: I miss The Comedy Company; ice cream is versatile; dig deeper.
Great stuff.
Eight out of ten.