Published 2016 on Down Under Flix
Director: Nick Parsons
Director: Nick Parsons
Stars: Bryan Brown, Ernie Dingo, Aaron Pedersen, Angie Milliken
I
first watched Dead Heart back
in 2000, as part of a course at university. In recent days I’ve been
thinking back on all the other Australian films I studied at
university (in a degree comprising various screen and literature courses,
including one specifically on Australian cinema, there were quite a few) and
pondering where those films have landed, culturally speaking, in subsequent
years. Wake in Fright,
which we watched on a scratchy, dog-eared print, has enjoyed a critical
and cultural resurgence in recent years and is soon to be adapted for television by the director of Red Dog. Other films, such as A Sunday Too Far Away and Two Hands, have sort of
plateaued, remaining constant in their standing. And others like Dead Heart, then only a
few years old, have faded from the spotlight and aren’t really part of the
cultural conversation. In this particular case, it’s a shame, because Dead Heart is an excellent
flick.
The
film takes place in Walla Walla, a small outback town with a predominantly
Indigenous population. Ray Lorkin (Bryan Brown) is a senior police officer
imposing “white fella” law on the local Indigenous community, with priest David
(Ernie Dingo) a middleman between the white and black citizens. Ray’s approach
to maintaining order incurs the wrath of Aboriginal elder Poppy (Gnarnayarrahe
Waitairie). Also incurring Poppy’s anger is Tony (Aaron Pedersen), a young Indigenous
man having an affair with white woman Kate (Angie Milliken), wife of the local
schoolteacher Les (Lewis Fitz-Gerald). When Tony is killed, Ray is tasked with
investigating, leading to further clashes with Poppy, the black community, and
his white counterparts.
Dead
Heart originated
as a stage play scripted by Nick Parsons and mounted by Belvoir St Theatre.
Parsons adapted and directed his play for the screen, and the film has the
thematic texture and meat of a sturdy piece of theatre. Characters are layered,
flawed but sympathetic, and Parsons uses them as vehicles to showcase different
perspectives on – and pose provocative questions about – contemporary and
historical black-white relations. Ray’s approach to imposing white law is
patriarchal and dictatorial, and for much of the film he appears a blatant
racist, but his hard line approach stems from a compassion and conviction that
he’s doing the right thing, however warped and misguided. Parsons and Brown
don’t shy away from the inherent ugliness of much of what Ray does, but are
also empathetic to a degree. Similarly, Poppy’s machinations against Ray are
not painted in a flattering light, but are justified as a survival mechanism
within the context of lifelong injustices suffered. Multiple other vantage
points are expressed in the film, each shaded and sympathetic in some way:
there’s David, divided between his Christian faith and black heritage, neither
white fella nor black fella but “just a fella”; Tony, fond of his country
but thoroughly modern and heedless towards traditions; Les, earnest in his
liking of the land and mission to educate but fatally ill-suited to
his environment; and Kate, who finds romantic solace in these harsh
surrounds but in doing so betrays her husband and violates local customs.
While Dead Heart has the texture
of a play, this screen adaptation never feels theatrical. This is partly due to
the fact that much of the action transpires in exteriors rather than interiors,
ensuring no creaky stage-bound quality sets in. But on top of that, the film
feels cinematic, particularly in its editing: see, for example, a scene that
cuts back & forth between one of David’s services and Tony and Kate’s
tryst in a sacred site, making excellent use of montage, composition, sound,
and juxtaposition. Whilst there’s a certain formal inelegance to Dead Heart compared to
other recent depictions of Aboriginal experiences on film – see, for example,
recent films by Ivan Sen and Rolf de Heer – those rough edges are fitting to
the tone of the film and the town & environs of Walla Walla: coarse,
severe, and fraught with tensions.
Bryan
Brown is such a staple of Australian film, and so seemingly effortless in his
delivery, that it’s easy to forget how enormously talented he is. While he has
a “type” that he frequently errs towards, Ray is a complex creation and Brown
invests him with gravitas. Pedersen is extremely charismatic in his fleeting
screentime, and Dingo, Waitairie, Milliken, Fitz-Gerald, and the rest of the
cast (including John Jarratt in a minor role as an opportunistic academic) are
uniformly first-rate.
Dead Heart is
excellent and criminally underrated. It has thematic heft, muscular
filmmaking, strong performances, and the provocative questions it poses
remain pertinent twenty years later. Plus it’s a terrific thriller. A
sound investment of your time.
Ben Kooyman