 | The Proposition Director: John Hillcoat Rated MA Palace Nova, now screening  The Australian outback has desperately needed cinematic revision - a film to challenge its depiction as pure frontier in the Ken Hall era of Australian cinema and virgin state in the 'seventies Renaissance. That revision has arrived in the form of 'The Proposition', the second collaboration between director John Hillcoat and screenwriter Nick Cave and their first since 'Ghosts Of The Civil Dead' (1988).'The Proposition' is set in 1880's North Queensland - cruel one day, brutal the next. Local law enforcement officer Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) is straining to maintain law and order in the wild Australian East. Landowner and Stanley's immediate political superior, Eden Fletcher (David Wenham) is baying for criminal blood - sound familiar? However, Stanley struggles to make any headway in a sprawling jurisdiction where bushrangers meld with the landscape and even with the local aboriginal community. He is also anxious about his wife Martha (Emily Watson) whose mind is slowly unraveling. The futility of Stanley's quest is symbolised in his home, a colonial cottage complete with white picket fence and tenuous rose garden withering and overwhelmed by the harsh surroundings. Desperate times call for desperate measures. When Stanley captures two members of the infamous Burns gang - Charlie (Guy Pearce) and Mikey (Richard Wilson) - he presents Charlie with the proposition; Stanley will let Mikey go if Charlie kills or captures his older brother and gang leader Arthur (Danny Huston) by Christmas. If Charlie fails, Mikey will hang. The plot line is pure Cave and an expansion of the Old Testament Biblical and violent themes he explores in his songs - Cain and Abel sprinkled with Abraham and Isaac with a touch of crucifixion added. There is a sense of divine inevitability about the course of the narrative. It's also clear that Hillcoat and Cave are trying to invent a new genre - the Australian Western. The characters are more archetypes than real people and show the influence of Peckinpah, Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven', and particularly Jim Jarmusch's quirky 'Dead Man' and its burnt order and anarchy. 'The Proposition' is a technical triumph. The cinematography by Benoit Delhomme is breathtaking and daring and complemented superbly by Chris Kennedy's production design. The performances are effective. Pearce is a stoic hero/antihero. Winstone is sincere and makes his character as sympathetic as possible under the circumstances. Watson is a frail English 'rose', while Huston is suitably dark and unsettling as the psychopathic Arthur. However, the three-standout performances are given by Wilson as the sniveling Mikey, Wenham as the supercilious and sadistic Fletcher and John Hurt, hamming it up mercilessly as a ruthless bounty hunter. The direction is stylish and the film came and went without so much as a single glance at my watch. The film's weakness lies in its screenplay. The underdeveloped characters are more like ciphers than real people. No one is particularly likeable or sympathetic, even Stanley. There will also be arguments about the level of violence. At times, the many decapitations and shootings are too gratuitous to justify any Mel Gibson-necessary realism defence. Nevertheless, 'The Proposition' was refreshingly audacious and a film that will get Adelaide tongues wagging. Let's hope we don't have to wait another seventeen years for Hillcoat and Cave's next joint venture.  | |
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