The Nightingale

[Custard]

Apologies if there is already a thread. Couldn't find one

So this is the second film by Jennifer Kent, who made the rather good The Babadook a few years ago

The premise:
Set in 1825, Clare, a young Irish convict woman, chases a British officer through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. On the way she enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4068576/plotsummary?item=po2100403

It's really dark, really fucking nasty in places, but there's some dark humour scattered in there too.

The main villain is bordering on a bit pantomime as surely no one in this world is that much of an evil cunt (surely), but it's the best I've ever seen Sam Clafin

Baykali Ganambarr is also great as the Aboriginal tracker, and threatens to be the star of the film at various points, certainly towards the end

Aisling Franciosi steals the show though, with a fantastic central performance as the aggrieved widow who is desperate for revenge

It follows the usual revenge western tropes, but with some nice twists and detours here n there.

Deffo one of the films of the year for me, and it's out there now in the wild

[Peru]

I had major problems with this. Pantomime villain, as you say, which works against what the film is trying to say about the everyday horrors of colonialism. Endless scenes of rape, which push the viewer out of the film through their sheer relentlessness (there's a fine line between showing it as it was and sending viewers for the exits in droves, which has apparently been happening). Two endings, one of which feels tacked on so the film can have its cake and eat it. I love The Babadook but Kent dropped the ball on this one.

[Head Gardener]

the bit with the baby was the most shocking thing I think I've ever seen in a Vue

[Custard]

*SPOILERZ*

Aye, there's some genuinely disturbing, horrific scenes in the early going there.

The baby bit was possibly even a step too far, as nobody wants to see that. Or the prolonged scenes of rape. They deffo should have trimmed those scenes, as they're incredibly disturbing

But following them, I do think it becomes an effective revenge thriller, and I thought the cast were excellent.

I do agree with them over-egging it at the end there too, as it would have possibly been more effective with it ending after her basically calling him a cunt in front of his pals. But I still liked tracker blokey going on the rampage and his final scene

So absolutely a tough watch, but I really enjoyed it overall

[Moribunderast]

I'm one of the few who really didn't get on with The Babadook (I find it's overwhelming popularity quite mystifying) but I did like The Nightingale. I don't really mind the pantomime villains given that actual period of Australian (specifically Tasmanian) history was rife with genuine pantomime villainy.

I did feel like switching the film off in the first 30 minutes. The non-stop brutalisation of the main character was horrific and I do think it could be incredibly triggering for many viewers. That said, I can appreciate the idea behind it, "showing it how it is" and whatnot, even if it's deeply unpleasant to see.

Thought the two leads were excellent.

Overall, it's a typical Aussie film. Relentlessly grim, full of man-on-woman violence but very well-made. I just wish Australia could produce more films like Malcolm in between all the Snowtowns and Animal Kingdoms and Nightingales.

[DukeDeMondo]

I thought this was really fucking good. I thought The Babadook was really fucking good too, but this is a whole different sort of really fucking good altogether.

It was extremely tough in places, and those scenes, the ones you're talking about, they were indeed horrific, but they had to be fucking horrific. They had to be fucking raging. 

But it was also beautiful when it had to be.

There's a lot of Come And See in its blood. The way it uses the landscape, the way it conjures up the reek of death and destruction all roads and directions. Corpses here and there, don't look, turn away. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Come And See was a major inspiration.   

I really, really liked it. I don't think I ever want to see it again in my life.

[dissolute ocelot]

(Spoilers ahead.) I thought it was really great, but obviously wouldn't watch it again soon. It was very ambitious, but largely succeeded in portraying the full evil of the British Empire (no matter what Niall Ferguson might say). The villain is sometimes a bit over the top (apart from anything else I wasn't convinced by his decision to go crosscountry and magically change the mind of the military authorities or whatever) but the film also works really hard to justify and explain it: the pressures of trying to control a bunch of assholes in a terrible situation, how alcohol is basically the only release (aside from fighting, rape, and murder), the way he tries to train up the young boy to be a good apprentice colonialist (quite plausible although maybe goes a bit far ... or maybe not so far), the way everybody in the army is basically a short distance from entirely falling apart. The baby killing is horrible, but drunk men really do kill babies in similar circumstances.

I also liked how objectionable and unlikable the heroine was, particularly in being a racist early on, and her husband was clearly going to get himself killed right from the start. The ending was a little sentimental/nice, but it could have gone much further in that direction - at one point I thought they were going to set up home together and raise mixed-race kids, but going on a killing rampage is always a better solution. It also wasn't quite as pretty as some rural, Western-style films, but maybe Tasmania isn't as nice as some places, and she didn't want to go full Terence Malick. I also wasn't sure how much it was trying to equate the plight of Irish people with Australian aborigines - it obviously wasn't saying they were the same, but it was kind of close to shitty Celtic nationalist rhetoric at times (Terry Eagleton shouts "The Irish are the real victims of British Imperialism!"). But those are minor quibbles in comparison to the overall.

It's considerably better than Zama, the other recent film about a slightly crazy colonial figure of frustrated ambition, which for me worked ok on an intellectual level but was also kind of boring (I could see what it was doing and it was mildly funny in parts but overall a bit meh).