Post by Capo on Jan 1, 2007 18:18:10 GMT
Wolf Creek
Greg McLean 2004 Australia
Three backpackers, an Australian male and two English tourists, get stranded in the Outback, and take the offered help of a seemingly genuine local.
Effective, confident piece of filmmaking; it looks marvellous, presenting beautiful images of the Australian landscape as if from a postcard, which are contradicted by the brutal violence which occurs. The opening hour is a subtle lesson on how to absorb and ultimately wrong-foot an audience, and after that it is a tremendously sustained gore-fest reminiscent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. McLean plays wonderful tricks with character point-of-view... he sets up three main characters, for instance, and makes a point of showing them all together and then in pairs without the other one, and even sometimes alone, so that it is very much a film about three people. But when the terror kicks in, the perspective shifts from one victim to the other, and it is from this (and the brilliant acting helps too) that McLean can induce panic or terror or hope in his audience with ease. The disturbing factor in the scene in which one of the girls is tortured, for instance, stems from the significant fact that we are only seeing it from the other girl's perspective; it would create a very different feel if the camera were to move elsewhere, or if it were the male through whom we were watching the scene. Very bleak, cinematic, and rewarding.
Greg McLean 2004 Australia
Three backpackers, an Australian male and two English tourists, get stranded in the Outback, and take the offered help of a seemingly genuine local.
Effective, confident piece of filmmaking; it looks marvellous, presenting beautiful images of the Australian landscape as if from a postcard, which are contradicted by the brutal violence which occurs. The opening hour is a subtle lesson on how to absorb and ultimately wrong-foot an audience, and after that it is a tremendously sustained gore-fest reminiscent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. McLean plays wonderful tricks with character point-of-view... he sets up three main characters, for instance, and makes a point of showing them all together and then in pairs without the other one, and even sometimes alone, so that it is very much a film about three people. But when the terror kicks in, the perspective shifts from one victim to the other, and it is from this (and the brilliant acting helps too) that McLean can induce panic or terror or hope in his audience with ease. The disturbing factor in the scene in which one of the girls is tortured, for instance, stems from the significant fact that we are only seeing it from the other girl's perspective; it would create a very different feel if the camera were to move elsewhere, or if it were the male through whom we were watching the scene. Very bleak, cinematic, and rewarding.