REVIEWS
The Hunter REVIEWED BY FRANK HATHERLEY
Daniel Nettheim’s compelling debut feature is based on the 1999 debut novel by Julia Leigh — whose own first feature, the confronting Sleeping Beauty, caused a stir at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Mixing international espionage with save-the-wilderness activism, The Hunter is both unpredictable and unsettling. After its Toronto world premiere, local interest will be strong for the October 6 Australian arthouse release. Willem Dafoe’s intense, craggy presence will certainly boost the international prospects of this apocalyp- tic tale. Into the heart of Tasmanian darkness goes Mar-
tin David (Dafoe), ultra-professional hunter with a secret mission. Martin’s prey — and we never doubt this obsessive soldier/hunter will somehow track it down — is a thylacine, the long-thought extinct ‘Tasmanian tiger’. As part of the movie’s expertly precise introduction, we see some magi- cal 1930s footage of one of the last thylacines in captivity. It is a sad, living image that haunts the rest of the story. Reported new sightings have led US military
biotech company Redleaf to hire Martin to trap the beast in order to harvest some of its DNA. Equipped with the latest traps and high-powered telescopic rifles, he arrives to find deeply suspi- cious tree-lopping backwoodsmen and equally determined crusading ‘Greenies’. He is booked to stay with local eco-warrior Jarrah, but Jarrah has gone missing and his drugged, hippy wife Lucy (O’Connor) has permanently taken to her bed. Their two lively, semi-feral children, self-named Sassafras (Davies) and Bike (Koman), latch on to their ruggedly self-assured US visitor. Dafoe is memorable as the deeply private free-
lancer, compulsively scouring a tub in order to take a cold-water bath, and laying intricate snares on his weeklong treks into the wilderness. His quest is conflicted: if he ever finds a thylacine, will he kill it or preserve it? Is his macho ‘goodness’ as much under threat as these giant old-growth
n 12 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 10, 2011
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Aus. 2011. 101mins Director Daniel Nettheim Production company Porchlight Films Australia/New Zealand distribution Madman Entertainment International sales eOne Films International,
www.eonefilms.com Producer Vincent Sheehan Executive producers Liz Watts, Anita Sheehan, Paul Wiegard Screenplay Alice Addison, based on the novel by Julia Leigh Cinematography Robert Humphreys Editor Roland Gallois Production designer Steven Jones-Evans Music Matteo Zingales, Michael Lira, Andrew Lancaster Main cast Willem Dafoe, Sam Neill, Frances O’Connor, Morgana Davies, Jacek Koman, Dan Wyllie
trees? Alice Addison’s taut screenplay from Leigh’s austere novel keeps all the options open for an unexpected conclusion. Also fine are Frances O’Connor as the fraught
‘sleeping beauty’ who wakes to new challenges, and Sam Neill as the laconic neighbour whose friendliness might well be compromised. Director Nettheim has a track record of quality
television drama, though nothing to prepare us for the breadth, style and confidence of his cinema
debut. As usual for movies shot in inland Tasma- nia, the scenery is constantly amazing. Wild wide- screen vistas are captured beautifully by award-winning cinematographer Robert Hum- phreys (Somersault, Unfinished Sky). He gives us prehistoric, shattered-mountain moonscapes and mammoth, moss-covered treescapes. “Traps and snares are illegal in Tasmania,” says
an end title. Lucky nobody told anyone involved with this gripping movie.
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