A road worth travelling
“THERE’S only two stories that ever get told,” I once read. “Stranger comes to town, and someone goes on a journey.”
Even if that’s not 100 per cent accurate, I sure like the way it sounds. And as we approach the halfway mark of 2018, it sure relates to what’s shaping up as one of the best homegrown TV productions of the year, the ABC’s six-episode crime drama Mystery Road.
It seems odd that it’s taken so long for this show to come about, given the groundswell of goodwill and high regard for the two movies that provide its foundation — Mystery Road and Goldstone, both the work of multi-talented filmmaker Ivan Sen.
In a perfect world, by now we’d be five films into a tough, gritty and thoughtful police-procedural franchise centred around haunted, hard-bitten cop Jay Swan, played by veteran Aussie actor Aaron Pedersen.
But it seems getting more and more difficult nowadays to attract audiences to cinemas for stories without superheroes, so Swan has made the transition to the small screen for this spin-off series … with all of its best qualities intact.
What’s surprising and pleasing about that is Sen — who placed such a stamp on the two films featuring Pedersen’s Swan by directing, writing, editing, composing the music and probably making sandwiches for the cast and crew every day — is actually only on board the series as an executive producer.
While the six episodes are directed by the extremely able Rachel Perkins and scripted by a squad of writers, Mystery Road is clearly using Sen’s movies as a foundation and template.
The series has the same striking visual style, making incredibly effective use of harsh and beautiful outback locations (the Kimberley region of Western Australia, in this case), and subtle but gutsy and thoughtful approach to its themes and issues.
The frequently tense relationship between white and indigenous Australia courses through the stories, both film and TV, like an electrical current, giving Swan’s investigations into deaths and disappearances both a mournful quality and a razorsharp relevance.
Whenever Swan comes to a remote location in hopes of cracking a case, he’s not only confronted with the particulars of what has happened but years — even decades — of history that have seeped poison into the lives of the people involved.
What is so effective about the movies, and now the Mystery Road series, is that this becomes an intrinsic part of a tough, compelling mystery populated by deep, colourful characters.
You’re not getting a socialstudies lesson when you tune in. You’re getting a gripping slowburn yarn, one that holds the attention from the get-go.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that it’s packed with a murderers’ row of some of Australia’s best actors, with the great Judy Davis leading the charge as a straight-shooting small-town cop assisting Swan’s investigation into a dual missingpersons case that almost no one wants solved.
On top of that, you have Colin Friels, John Waters, Deborah Mailman, Anthony Hayes, Ernie Dingo and Madeleine Madden, rising star of the recent Picnic at Hanging Rock mini-series.
Holding it all together, however, is Pedersen, continuing to expand on a character that is full of dramatic possibilities (all of which the excellent actor deftly explores) while displaying the kind of terse, charismatic presence Clint Eastwood built a career upon.
Mystery Road premieres tomorrow at 8.30pm on ABC.