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The Proposition [2005]

For those of you who like westerns, and I know you’re out there, this is quite the film.  Yet this film is unlike most traditional westerns: this is no simple cowboy’s vs Indians flick, but rather an intelligent and soulful film [well for me at least, and I’m not saying that most westerns are stupid, but I guess you have to see the Proposition to know properly what I mean!]

Set in the harsh Australian outback, sometime in the middle 19th Century, The Proposition centres itself around, well, a proposition. [Of course!]

Since it is kind of beyond my capacity at the moment, I am just going to summarize the film via the lovely cut and paste tool:

“The Proposition is set in the Australian outback in the 1880s. The new local Police Chief, Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone), has promised himself that he will “civilise this place”. In order to do so he targets the Burns brothers. The oldest, Arthur (Danny Housten), being the most notorious criminal in the area.

To reign in Arthur Burns, Captain Stanley captures Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and the youngest Burns boy Mickey in a fierce shoot-out at the beginning of the film, introducing the amazing visuals and violence of The Proposition. The Captain holds Mickey prisoner and promises to hang him in nine days time on Christmas day if Charlie Burns does not track down and kill his older brother Arthur. And so the proposition is set.”
(from The Film review (http://www.perthfilms.com/reviews.asp?iCategoryID=1&iArticleID=261&archived=FALSE) for those who are interested in reading more)

The scenery and cinematography in this film is amazing.  It also has a very poetic feel to it via celebrated musician Nick Cave, who was the screenwriter and score composer.  

I have to admit it took me about the first twenty minutes to get into this film properly, but this was more to do with lack of sleep and thus had trouble paying attention rather than bad filmmaking.  Once I did perk up though The Proposition held my attention the whole way through, no mean feat considering the lack of dialogue in many parts of the film.

Depicting a brutal, harsh outback, this film has some nasty violence in it, and although I heard it was really violent, I thought it was quite appropriate given the films harsh nature, and as such the violence was treated well and isn’t actually too bad [especially given the sorts of films we would watch as B-movie fans!]

The way in which director John Hillcoat displays this moral struggle of outback vs civilisation is nothing short of amazing, and Charlie’s struggle in deciding whether to kill his brother or not is presented to us via a film which is strong in character development.  Whilst I have read on imdb some people’s opinions of this being a boring, crappy film, I’d have to disagree.  Like I mentioned earlier, there doesn’t seem to be as much dialogue as your normal film which could come across as boring, but this film grabbed my attention [well eventually! :-P ] in a way which I haven’t experienced in a while.  There is simply too much going on in these scenes without dialogue to worry about this film being boring.

The performances are fantastic, and it is no small wonder this film is up for a few AFI awards [Aussie equivalent of the Oscars.]

One of my friends who saw it with me seemed fairly affected by this films treatment of racism as well.  This is mainly because this country seems to hide away from its very racist past, and partly because we do not often see Australian aboriginals depicted on screen in such a way, and as such is a bit unsettling, though I wonder if this would have the same effect on non-Australians.

Overall, this is by far one of my favourite films of the year, and definitely a must-see.  Have a look and tell me what you think:

The Proposition Trailer (http://www.villagecinemas.com.au/ftp/trailers/TheProposition_high.mov/)

Oh, and according to the website, The Propostition played at the Toronto Film Festival.  I wonder how it was recieved.

Sounds like a good one Dean. I'll keep a look out for it. Thanks.

The last Australian 1800's film I saw was one starring Dennis Hopper as MAD DOG MORGAN. Good film.



Post Edited (11-23-05 10:21)