Jason KingVan Diemen's Land ($11-)
September 20th 2009 02:09
:
A FILM BY JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE
Category: No Category
Van Diemen's Land ($11-)
The true story of Australia's most notorious convict, Alexander Pearce and his infamous escape into the beautiful yet brutal Tasmanian wilderness. A point of no return for convicts banished from their homeland, Van Diemen's Land was a feared and dreaded penal settlement at the end of the earth.
The entrance to its remote station of secondary punishment, Macquarie Harbour, was named 'Hell's Gates' by its prisoners as a reference to the gates of hell in Dante's 'Inferno' - "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" - was plastered at the Harbour's mouth as a warning to all souls sent there.
In 1822, eight convicts escaped Macquarie Harbour in a fateful bid for freedom. This band of Irish, English and Scottish thieves were immediately hurled into chaos as their plan failed and they were thrust into the heart of a harsh and foreboding landscape. With little food or equipment, in a place these immigrants knew little about, they battled a merciless enemy - the unforgiving, barren land - a land where God wields an axe.
This isn't your typical quaint Australian film that you would take your parents too. It is gritty, slow moving and bloody violent with lots of seedy elements you probably would not like to see. It is a canabilism film and it does not overly hold back. The opening scene is a man eating and this man is eating normal food and already I felt slightly squeamish. The sound of him chewing was urky.
After the bungled escape attempt they are forced to escape out into the wild of 1822 Tasmania with nearly no supplies and no direction. "We are heading East" says the leader of the pack. And so they head into some of the most beautiful and harsh environment of the Australian landscape. This begins their journey in what I can describe as an Australian ode to Dante's Inferno (a book I have been painstakingly on and off reading for the last six months). It is shot beautifully. The cinematography of Ellery Ryan is outstanding. He has won AFI awards for Angel Baby and Spotswood and another one is clearly on its way to him for this film. I would describe him as the best cinematographer out of this country behind Dean Semler (Academy Award winner for Dances with Wolves and a list of credits that is awe inspiring). He brings a visual strength to this film that is definatley required. The film is slow moving. It is lots of walking, followed by more walking and each day's journey is bridged by camping without equipment and picking off another victim to become the night's meal.
The director, JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, is a recently graduated VCA student who won six awards for his short film, Hell's Gates. The story of Alexander Pearce is one that has interested him since growing up in Tasmania and he made his short film as a preview to this feature, Van Diemen's Land. I think it will receive numerous glowing reviews for it's individual style and art house approach but the film can come across as boring at times. There is only so many times you can watch eight men walk every day and then despatch another meal each night. What he does succeed in doing is showing the mental decline of the men, it's a futile jounrey with no hope of salvation. So why do it? Mel Gibson can best describe it "FREEDOM". One of the things I think the film is lacking is that not once did they ever attempt to hunt for local animals or try the berries. To me the decision to eat each other came about too quickly and then for the first victim they bumped off the only character I liked. The rest of them were seedy animals. Another thing that emerges is that the decision maker, or leader, of the group holds much power over the others, however, Alexander Pearce is the quiet guy we all kind of like to start with and then out of the blue he is the evil piece of work the film is all about. I suppose his ethos is do what has to be done to survive.
There is also a poetic randomly placed voiceover that confused the hell out of me. For some reason I thought it was coming from a native of Tasmania but this just would not have made sense. It has since been discussed and we think it must have been Pearce but to me, even this did not make sense. It is possible this film was too art house for me and lot of it went over my head but there quite a few confusing elements. David never understood why or where the gay storyline of two of the characters came from, but I managed to work this one out
The acting is all top notch and I cannot fault any of the performances from Oscar Redding, Arthur Angel, Paul Ashcroft, Mark Leonard Winter, Torquil Neilson, Thomas Michael Wright, Greg Stone and John Francis Howard. You may recognise some of the characters from Australian TV shows but this film lifted their game. The conditions for filming in these remote areas would have been a trial in itself.
For s debut feature from JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE this is amazing work and I cannot wait to see how he develops over his coming works. I would like to see a feature of life in Hell's Gates. His work is unique to Australia and takes a path that we need to encourage in upcoming talent.
To summarise, the film is beautifully shot and tells a unique dark Australian story in a harsh and unforgiving land. The acting is great but the film is long and drawn out with some gut wrenching visuals and mental stimulation. It commences this Thursday 24th September on limited art house release around the country. Worth $11-
The true story of Australia's most notorious convict, Alexander Pearce and his infamous escape into the beautiful yet brutal Tasmanian wilderness. A point of no return for convicts banished from their homeland, Van Diemen's Land was a feared and dreaded penal settlement at the end of the earth.
The entrance to its remote station of secondary punishment, Macquarie Harbour, was named 'Hell's Gates' by its prisoners as a reference to the gates of hell in Dante's 'Inferno' - "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" - was plastered at the Harbour's mouth as a warning to all souls sent there.
In 1822, eight convicts escaped Macquarie Harbour in a fateful bid for freedom. This band of Irish, English and Scottish thieves were immediately hurled into chaos as their plan failed and they were thrust into the heart of a harsh and foreboding landscape. With little food or equipment, in a place these immigrants knew little about, they battled a merciless enemy - the unforgiving, barren land - a land where God wields an axe.
This isn't your typical quaint Australian film that you would take your parents too. It is gritty, slow moving and bloody violent with lots of seedy elements you probably would not like to see. It is a canabilism film and it does not overly hold back. The opening scene is a man eating and this man is eating normal food and already I felt slightly squeamish. The sound of him chewing was urky.
After the bungled escape attempt they are forced to escape out into the wild of 1822 Tasmania with nearly no supplies and no direction. "We are heading East" says the leader of the pack. And so they head into some of the most beautiful and harsh environment of the Australian landscape. This begins their journey in what I can describe as an Australian ode to Dante's Inferno (a book I have been painstakingly on and off reading for the last six months). It is shot beautifully. The cinematography of Ellery Ryan is outstanding. He has won AFI awards for Angel Baby and Spotswood and another one is clearly on its way to him for this film. I would describe him as the best cinematographer out of this country behind Dean Semler (Academy Award winner for Dances with Wolves and a list of credits that is awe inspiring). He brings a visual strength to this film that is definatley required. The film is slow moving. It is lots of walking, followed by more walking and each day's journey is bridged by camping without equipment and picking off another victim to become the night's meal.
The director, JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE, is a recently graduated VCA student who won six awards for his short film, Hell's Gates. The story of Alexander Pearce is one that has interested him since growing up in Tasmania and he made his short film as a preview to this feature, Van Diemen's Land. I think it will receive numerous glowing reviews for it's individual style and art house approach but the film can come across as boring at times. There is only so many times you can watch eight men walk every day and then despatch another meal each night. What he does succeed in doing is showing the mental decline of the men, it's a futile jounrey with no hope of salvation. So why do it? Mel Gibson can best describe it "FREEDOM". One of the things I think the film is lacking is that not once did they ever attempt to hunt for local animals or try the berries. To me the decision to eat each other came about too quickly and then for the first victim they bumped off the only character I liked. The rest of them were seedy animals. Another thing that emerges is that the decision maker, or leader, of the group holds much power over the others, however, Alexander Pearce is the quiet guy we all kind of like to start with and then out of the blue he is the evil piece of work the film is all about. I suppose his ethos is do what has to be done to survive.
There is also a poetic randomly placed voiceover that confused the hell out of me. For some reason I thought it was coming from a native of Tasmania but this just would not have made sense. It has since been discussed and we think it must have been Pearce but to me, even this did not make sense. It is possible this film was too art house for me and lot of it went over my head but there quite a few confusing elements. David never understood why or where the gay storyline of two of the characters came from, but I managed to work this one out
The acting is all top notch and I cannot fault any of the performances from Oscar Redding, Arthur Angel, Paul Ashcroft, Mark Leonard Winter, Torquil Neilson, Thomas Michael Wright, Greg Stone and John Francis Howard. You may recognise some of the characters from Australian TV shows but this film lifted their game. The conditions for filming in these remote areas would have been a trial in itself.
For s debut feature from JONATHAN AUF DER HEIDE this is amazing work and I cannot wait to see how he develops over his coming works. I would like to see a feature of life in Hell's Gates. His work is unique to Australia and takes a path that we need to encourage in upcoming talent.
To summarise, the film is beautifully shot and tells a unique dark Australian story in a harsh and unforgiving land. The acting is great but the film is long and drawn out with some gut wrenching visuals and mental stimulation. It commences this Thursday 24th September on limited art house release around the country. Worth $11-
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Agree about the brilliant cinematography in what must have been difficult terrain..............I didn't know Ellery Ryan had recently had a sex change though!
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Who would name their son Ellery
What did you make of the voice over? It has been bugging me and I don't want to watch it again to work it out.
Apologies to Ellery Ryan.
Comment by David O'Connell
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The voiceover is indeed Pearce speaking in Gaelic. I think it's meant to provide a mystical, poetic, omniscient sort of overview of their plight and relates back to the way he and a couple of the other prisoners spoke to one another when they didn't want those of English ancestry to understand what they were saying.
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