Glasgow Film Festival 2015: Wake in Fright
Ted Kotcheff would go on to chalk up major hits with the likes of First Blood and Weekend at Bernie's, but it's this rarely seen gem from 1971 that stands as the director's most enduring critical success, as well as being an undisputed benchmark of Australian cinema.
Equal parts psychological thriller and searing cultural critique, Wake in Fright depicts a world of aggressive camaraderie, treeless plains and brutal kangaroo hunts. It's into this environment that Gary Bond's refined school teacher finds himself trapped when he stops over in the remote mining town of Bundanyabba en route to a Christmas break in Sydney. The protagonist is almost immediately overcome by a hallucinatory fugue of violent alcoholic binges, Donald Pleasence and Chips Rafferty excelling as colourful local characters whose good natured eccentricity masks a volatile impulse toward homoerotic bullying. “What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink?”
The kindness of strangers has never seemed more terrifying than in this dusty, sun-bleached masterpiece, now stunningly restored. [Lewis Porteous]