Published 2017 on Down Under Flix
Directed by: Hugh Keays-Byrne, Paul Elliott
Directed by: Hugh Keays-Byrne, Paul Elliott
Starring: Helen Jones, Lorna Lesley, Robyn Nevin, Hugh Keays-Byrne,
Stephen Leeder, Harold Hopkins, Jack Thompson
Resistance is a film that’s
been on my “to watch” list a long time. A remote-set dystopian action-thriller
co-directed by character actor Hugh Keays-Byrne, best known as the antagonist
in those other famous remote-set dystopian action-thrillers Mad Max and Mad Max: Fury Road, is
an enticing proposition. However, the film was not afforded a conventional theatrical
release in Australia, and is not widely available on physical or streaming
media. I managed to secure a DVD copy via Amazon, but on receiving and finally
playing the disc was disappointed to find the soundtrack was in French and
there were no English subtitles. I decided to forge ahead and watch the film
anyway, on the chance I mightn’t ever see it in another form, though I hope
that Ozflix can one day add it to their
collection with its original soundtrack. That wasn’t my only quandary though; I
also had to decide whether to review a film which, based on the language
barrier, clearly had me at a disadvantage. Again, I decided to forge ahead and
do this because, as this review attests, even under imperfect viewing standards
the film’s merits are evident.
The
large, bold red title text above establishes the film’s title and theme in one
Oliver Stone-esque swoop. Resistance is
set in a near future where, according to the opening crawl – thankfully in
English – “A nation is bankrupt and losing control. The government, under
pressure, deploys its troops to all corners of the land. Martial law looms”.
The film chronicles the deployment of troops to the remote Ithaca Plains
Township and the imposition of law over the community. Female workers are
protesting their treatment by the local big agricultural business, and the
military, in the political-corporate interest, intervenes to curb these
protests. This intervention is violent, lives are lost, and the survivors band
together to fight back against their oppressors. If I’m describing all this in
rather broad strokes, once again please bear in mind I was working without
dialogue in audio or text form, so I’m no doubt missing some nuances and
intricacies.
As
noted above, part of my interest in seeing the film was due to Hugh
Keays-Byrne’s presence as co-director, alongside Paul Elliott. One of
Australia’s finest stalwart character actors, contemporary audiences got a
healthy dose of Keays-Byrne in 2015 when he played the year’s most instantly
iconic antagonist, Immortan Joe, in the year’s most instantly iconic
film, Mad Max: Fury Road,
more than 35 years after essaying his AFI-nominated villain role in Miller’s
original Mad Max.
While best known for those roles, my favourite Keays-Byrne performances can be
found in 1974’s Stone,
in which he played a violent drugged-up biker, and 1975’s The Man from Hong Kong, in which
he played an exasperated police detective. Only two years before,
Keays-Byrne had relocated from Britain to Australia, after touring the country
as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s experimental production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and
there’s a wonderful incongruity to this experimental English actor essaying
these broad Australian parts and investing them with theatrical gravitas:
flamboyant Shakespearean bogans is the best phrase I can use to describe those
characters and performances, and they’re absolutely delightful.
While
watching Australian actors (or English-Australian ones) in Australian settings
dubbed over and speaking exaggeratedly in French was a marked impediment, the
visual language and storytelling of Resistanceare
strong enough that I could probably have watched the film in silence, sans both
music and soundtrack, and gotten the same narrative gist. Keays-Byrne and
Elliot (who’s credited on the DVD but strangely not on IMDB) show a real knack for
composition and staging set pieces, and the visuals are striking and, where
needed, vivid, raw, and ugly. The co-directors are aided by some legit talent
behind the scenes, including editor Stewart Young (who worked on last week's film Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead and
John Hillcoat’s subsequent film To
Have and To Hold) and cinematographer Sally Bongers (who shot Jane
Campion’s Sweetie).
There’s some legit talent onscreen too, with Keays-Byrne himself playing a
supporting role as well as recognisable faces like Robyn Nevin, Jack Thompson,
Harold Hopkins, Vincent Gil (another Ghosts
of the Civil Dead and Mad
Max alum), and Donal (brother of Mel) Gibson appearing
alongside new, rising, and veteran talents. This concentration of talent and
combined credentials, not to mention the film’s scale – it cost around $6.3
million and looks like it was shot largely on location – and technical prowess
– it received AFI Award nominations for Best Editing and Best Production Design
– only makes it more mind-boggling and suspect that this was never afforded
proper release. I’ve encountered some juicy conjecture about this online, but
no official take from its creators.
Resistance is one of a number of
Australian films depicting dystopian futures. Mad Max and its sequels are the jewels in
this genre’s crown, but there’s also Turkey
Shoot (in which the elite imprison subversives and hunt them
for sport), Dead End
Drive-In (in which juvenile delinquents are rounded up and
imprisoned in drive-in cinemas), The
Rover (which is somewhat vague about the specifics of its
dystopian future, but paints a bleak and desolate portrait nonetheless), two
adaptations of Nevil Shute’s novel On
the Beach (courtesy of message magnate Stanley Kramer and
music video maestro Russell Mulcahy), and such Australian-made, internationally
co-funded flicks as The
Salute of the Jugger (co-starring Keays-Byrne), The Time Guardian (reviewed here),
and Fortress. Of
the films I’ve seen (all bar The
Salute of the Jugger and Mulcahy’s television On the Beach), Resistance is the most
grounded, least fantastical of this assortment, and the only film to create an
immersive, lived-in community and then chronicle, over the course of the
narrative, the percolating discontent, the community’s dismantling by force,
and the consequent uprising. Keays-Byrne previously played a union leader in
Richard Lowenstein’s Strikebound and
the titular character, the leader of an underground Fascist movement, in
Tim Burtsall’s Kangaroo,
bespeaking an interest in political activism and its various
incarnations and uses, both good and ill. Resistance has
similar meat on its mind, and watching the film in late January –
with fresh memories of the recent marches across America against U.S. President
Trump and, closer to home, anti-Australia Day protests in Sydney that resulted
in fisticuffs – the film’s pro-activist, pro-resistance message resonated
with current events.
While lack of English subtitles and my inability to speak
French impeded my viewing experience, Resistance still
makes itself and its message heard. Muscular and visually impressive, the film
amplifies and dramatizes contemporary and, regrettably, continuing injustices
and inequities.
Ben Kooyman