Sweet Country

A provocative Western challenging Australia’s past

Certificate 15 Director Warwick Thornton Cast Hamilton Morris, Bryan Brown, Sam Neill Released Out now

In Sweet Country, director Warwick Thornton – winner of the prestigious Camera d’or for Samson and Delilah in 2009 – changes the long-standing tendency of reducing Aboriginal viewpoints to the fringes of Australian films in an important piece of contemporary cinema and one that resonates with today’s escalating racial tensions.

Loosely based on a true story of an Aboriginal man known as Wilaberta Jack in 1920s, Sweet Country follows Sam Kelly, a middle-aged farmhand on preacher Fred Smith’s Outback farm. Sam goes on the run with his wife Lizzie after he kills violent racist Harry March in a confrontation at Sam’s home. Pursued by hardened Sergeant Fletcher (Bryan Brown in his finest form), the community’s evolving knowledge of the confrontation starts to cast doubt on Sam’s supposed savagery, culminating in a trial filled with prejudice and emotion while fighting for the truth and the letter of the law.

As a definitive historical document, Sweet Country is unreliable, not only for its loose connection to the real events inspiring the film, but also the way Thornton constructs the film. While the narrative seems mostly linear, it’s laid out at an almost meditative pace and is completely stripped of any musical score. It is dotted with clever little time jumps, which not only serve to break up the story and keep the viewer guessing as to their meaning and significance, but also reflect upon how Indigenous Australians view the concept of time itself. Touches like that, the deeply empathetic portrait of Sam and the archetypes projected across the screen make Sweet Country a spiritually truthful fable of life in the volatile outback, and one that moves as much as it informs.