The Best And Worst Of The 2016 Sydney Film Festival, Reviewed
Sorry, the movie about Daniel Radcliffe's farting corpse is a bit of a stinker.
The Film To Get You Excited About Australian Cinema
Goldstone, dir. Ivan Sen
Starring: Aaron Pederson, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham, David Gulpilil
Reviewed by: Glenn Dunks
In the harsh desert sun of the Australian outback is where evil reigns. At least that’s what the movies tell us. No tin-shed town with a population in the double digits can prosper without a villainous head honcho running the show and pocketing the profits. Three years after he impressed with the potent Mystery Road, director Ivan Sen returns to this world in a sequel (although we’re probably not meant to call it that), Goldstone. It’s a new town, a new villain, and a new conspiracy, but the elements are the same and this time they come wrapped in a more haunting personal narrative that puts land rights and the concept of Indigenous country front and centre.
Aaron Pedersen returns as Detective Jay Swan, a drifting drunk and a police relic sent out into the sun and sand as punishment. He’s in the town of Goldstone hunting down a missing girl with little else to go on but a single sighting of her sitting under a sun-drenched tree. Goldstone is a remote mining town with so little going on that the mayor — a miscast Jacki Weaver, seemingly cutting and pasting her Oscar-nominated Animal Kingdom role — spends her days baking pies and scheming with David Wenham who wears the greatest pair of short-shorts you’ll see this year. Meanwhile, Goldstone’s police presence is the young Josh: bored and easy to manipulate until he learns the extent of the sex trade business that has been going on under his nose.
With each passing film, director Sen grows as a cinematic artist. Not just his work with actors — Pedersen is having an incredible year with this and Spear, plus he gets the best work out of Alex Russell yet and some understated turns by a supporting ensemble of Indigenous and Asian performers — but also in his evolving keen eye for imagery, which has reached new heights here. The flashing neon fluorescents of a mobile prostitution van named Pinky’s and a desert dive ranch bar juxtaposed against the dusty dusk are just two such striking moments.
Sure, Goldstone suffers slightly compared to the original due to some messy editing in the final act, but it is nonetheless a bolder and more confident film. Nowhere is this more evident than in Sen’s willingness to not just address contemporary issues of Indigenous Australians, but thrust them so visibly into the heart of the narrative. David Gulpilil is as potent an on-screen presence as ever and his work with Pedersen is one of the film’s finest revelations.
It’s easy to question whether we needed a follow-up to Mystery Road, especially given it was hardly a box office success on release. But Goldstone bucks the sequel trend and offers enough that is new and improved to justify its existence. Plus, it’s not often enough that we get a thrilling Australian police procedural on the big screen. Audiences should find enough in Goldstone to be entertained as well make them think.
For fans of: Mystery Road, the Australian outback, having nightmares about Jacki Weaver.
Opening in Australia: July 7
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