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March 28, 2024, 10:37:30 AM

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My Current Film Obsession: 'Wake In Fright'

Started by neveragain, March 16, 2021, 03:11:38 PM

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neveragain

It really takes a turn in the second part. Suddenly it's a murder mystery.

Chedney Honks

I'm going to take a punt on this off the back of this thread. Cheers. Sounds intriguing.

Sonny_Jim

reminds me of 'On the beach'.  Cracking film but the remake.os a bit 'meh'.

Lost Oliver

Feel dirty after watching it. In my top 10 flims of all time. Absolutely fucking excellent.

Noodle Lizard

It's great, and truly terrifying to me in a way I don't think any other film has managed.

I have a friend who is pretty much Donald Pleasance in this film - a PhD academic in philosophy and comparative literature, but also an absolute hedonist who takes everyone as they come and invisibly (perhaps even unintentionally) brings them down with him if they hang around long enough. He also gets by mostly on the generosity from those he encounters and somehow manages to never pay for anything. Also, like Pleasance's character, he never seems to be outwardly troubled by his circumstances - conversely, he's probably one of the more contented people I know. Nothing's really a struggle. He's also bald, intermittently violent and ambiguously gay (even "gay" doesn't seem like the right term to use, just that he would think nothing of fucking any arse available to him).

I sometimes resent being as "together" and settled-down as I am now when people like him are free to do whatever they want. This film is an antidote to that kind of thinking. I can easily imagine waking up in my bald philosophy mate's apartment one morning, sweaty and fucked with him cooking some kangaroo meat on the stove, except he'd be doing it to the tune of some Keith Jarrett. Just to add an almost taunting element of sophistication to the grim affair.

chveik

just watched it for the first time. i feel a bit sick now. it's ace though

greenman

Quote from: sevendaughters on March 16, 2021, 03:35:27 PM
awesome film. feels like it is about to tip into survival horror at any minute but every mistake made is John's because he can't stop sneering. a film you can actually feel as much as see. Pleasence is unreal in it and the scene where he and John meets is one of my favourite in all of film; the Doc offers the sage advice but John can't hear it....

Indeed, you'd waiting for the locals to turn on John but it never really happens and instead he turns himself. I'd agree with the earlier comment that it feels really more like a critical look at his character than the locals, his own sense of superiority being what really drags him down.

It does I think highlight actually the typical setup of these kinds of films when it shifts into overt danger its actually a relief, the aggressive blokishness is actually far more unconformable to watch than him being hunted by the locals would be.

mjwilson

Accidentally started watching the remake, only worked out my mistake after thinking that there shouldn't be mobile phones in a 1971 movie.

Now watching the proper one, but on Mubi not on YouTube, because I am fancy like that.


Chedney Honks

Fucking hell. Just watching this tonight on the BFI channel.

Dingy as fuck and completely believable inescapably claustrophobic. I see a fair bit of myself in Grant. Fucking hell.


edit: Oops, I think you're still watching.
Don't read this (way ahead of you, friend) until you've finished!

What did you think about the disclaimer at the end?
It seemed to make less and less sense the more I reread it.



"not many of these left so they deemed the footage of us shooting their faces off OK"

These "professional licensed hunters" turn out to be a bunch of pissed up ozzy yobbo's when you look into it more!

I thought they were maybe giving them mild electric shocks and throwing paint about, so that was upsetting to see that at the end.
My hot take was that they weren't filming a documentary, so there was absolutely no need for it.
Poor old roo's didn't wake up that morning and decide to be method actors.

On another forum, there was this really nice bloke I used to talk to about films and he reckoned it was a good example of the toxic masculinity when men get together actually seeping into the filmmaking process itself which I thought was a great point!

Quote from: Chedney Honks on April 05, 2021, 08:01:09 PMI see a fair bit of myself in Grant.

Please tell me you're not drinking that much!

greenman

It is I spose the old argument over whether the films anti hunting message justified filming it.

Chedney Honks

I don't believe it was footage made for the film. If it was, it's unjustifiable to me. I understand that the filmmakers wanted to show the actual horror of Australian culture, but for me it could have been horrifically simulated and made the same point. The fact that I was so repulsed suggests that it wouldn't have made the same point, though.

I think the film is worse for it because that has drawn so much of the focus away from the actual grubby encroaching horror. I won't forget this one for a while, for the atmosphere rather than the shock value.

Yeah, I totally agree. The film would have been better without that scene.

https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2010/03/22/making-wake-fright-part-three

Quote"What I saw in the rushes was far worse than anything we put in the picture," remembers Buckley. In one take a kangaroo was splattered in a particularly spectacular fashion. Watching this, Willoughby, on set to supervise as usual, feinted dead. According to camera operator Peter Hannan the killing went on for hours.

The stench, the blood and the obvious delight the 'Roo shooters had in their work started to wear down the filmmakers. Still, Kotcheff felt the pro hunters weren't exactly oblivious to the emotions being stirred up around them: "They would say to me: 'Ted we never look into the eyes of a kangaroo because if you look deep into the eyes of a 'Roo you'll never shoot one ever again.'"

It gets cold in the desert at night. The hunters started to hit the whisky to warm themselves. "By 2AM the hunters were getting really drunk and they started to miss," says cinematographer Brian West. Wounded kangaroos were hopping about helplessly, trailing their intestines. "It was becoming this orgy of killing and we (the crew) were getting sick of it." West had a private word with Tony Tegg, who arranged a 'power failure'. "I told Ted that we didn't have enough light to continue." The crew headed back to Broken Hill, some of them fighting back tears.

zomgmouse

ACTUALLY kangaroos are overpopulated and therefore one of the most if not only ethical meats to hunt (or something)

iamcoop

I've been meaning to watch this film for a long while and this thread finally inspired me to dive in.

It's a bit of a masterpiece isn't it?

Taut, fantastic writing, amazing acting performances and one of the most unrelentingly claustrophobic and grim atmospheres I've encountered from a film in a long time.

I felt sick watching all that beer being forced down in the first bar scene with Rafferty's character.

I think the hunting scene is key to the whole unremittingly grimy small-town horror world that we're stuck in but I'd definitely skip it on further viewings as I think you only really need to see it once.

10 bags of popcorn and a fucking brutal hangover

Yeah, maybe, I can sort of see that it needed to be there as an endpoint, as he's finally sucked into the comforting maelstrom and losing his humanity entirely, and just having a scene where he fist fights a kangaroo might have been a bit too comical on it's own.

Loads of other things they could have done though, and they definitely didn't have to actually go and kill real roos, and like honks says, sometimes it's best if these things don't come to a head, and that feeling of slow, panicky encroaching doom stays with you long after the curtain comes down.

iamcoop

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on April 06, 2021, 03:01:15 PM
Yeah, maybe, I can sort of see that it needed to be there as an endpoint, as he's finally sucked into the comforting maelstrom and losing his humanity entirely, and just having a scene where he fist fights a kangaroo might have been a bit too comical on it's own.

Loads of other things they could have done though, and they definitely didn't have to actually go and kill real roos, and like honks says, sometimes it's best if these things don't come to a head, and that feeling of slow, panicky encroaching doom stays with you long after the curtain comes down.

You make some very good points. I suppose I'm comforted (probably not the right word) by the idea that those hunts were taking place irrespective of whether there was a camera filming them or not. But then reading more into it it seems like that might not entirely be the case. There was obviously a lot of showboating going on with the hunters whilst it was taking place which is obviously horrific.

I guess a more important argument is whether the power of the film would be diminished if that scene were cut or at least edited to remove the gratuitous footage of 'Roo deaths and I think it probably wouldn't. So I've just argued against my own initial opinion there.

I don't really know how to articulate my opinion properly other than I feel like the scene adds something to the film but if it were removed it wouldn't take anything away from it. Which obviously doesn't make any sense. Christ, I think I'm bloody Socrates or something.


GoblinAhFuckScary

Just like Bela Tarr with his claiming the dead cat was looked after by a vet on site in Satantango, Kotcheff (or his producers w/e) is an obvious liar with that kangaroo disclaimer.

Two of my fave movies, still.

@iamcoop Haha, no, I get what you're saying.
All I can say is that I didn't think it was real while I was watching it, or at least I hoped it wasn't, and my heart only sunk when that disclaimer came up at the end.
Honestly, I think they could have faked it and made it look and feel more real!

Quote from: GoblinAhFuckScary on April 06, 2021, 03:19:51 PMSatantango

Ooh, that's new to me. Thank you!

GoblinAhFuckScary

Quote from: ImmaculateClump on April 06, 2021, 03:25:23 PM
Ooh, that's new to me. Thank you!

It's super super long but weirdly very very watchable and absorbing. Book yerself out a Sunday to watch all seven and a half hours and never look back

Rev+

Quote from: iamcoop on April 06, 2021, 03:15:17 PM
You make some very good points. I suppose I'm comforted (probably not the right word) by the idea that those hunts were taking place irrespective of whether there was a camera filming them or not. But then reading more into it it seems like that might not entirely be the case. There was obviously a lot of showboating going on with the hunters whilst it was taking place which is obviously horrific.

That's always been my suspicion, that it would have taken place either way, but the presence of the cameras made the whole thing even worse.

It is worth noting, if it's true, that the filmmakers approached animal welfare organisations after filming to ask if that footage should be removed, and were told that they should definitely keep it in.


zomgmouse

Quote from: Rev+ on April 06, 2021, 09:53:16 PM
It is worth noting, if it's true, that the filmmakers approached animal welfare organisations after filming to ask if that footage should be removed, and were told that they should definitely keep it in.

Pretty sure I heard that Kotcheff donated the footage to PETA or something to that effect.

phantom_power

It does seem the intention was noble, even if there were unintended effects in terms of how the hunters behaved in front of an "audience", though we will never know how they would have acted without one. They may have been worse

Ham Bap

#55
Edit - Wrong thread

GoblinAhFuckScary