Wake in Fright (1971)
Country: AUS/US
Technical: Technicolor 108m
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Cast: Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, Jack Thompson
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher exiled to the sticks looks forward to a summer recess spent with his girlfriend in Sydney. But an overnight stopover in an industrial town leads to aggressive hospitality from the locals, drinking, gambling, kangaroo hunting, and ultimately paralysis.
Review:
Gary Bond, a TV actor forever remembered as Private Cole in Zulu, is excellent here as a 'better than thou' educated man whose understandable 'can't beat 'em, join 'em' attitude leads incrementally to drunkenness, greed, fornication and animal cruelty. A kind of morality tale that seems to suggest that the greatest enemy to man's happiness is the madness brought on by isolation and implacable nature herself: only Pleasence's Doc Tydon accommodates himself gamely to his surroundings. Certainly if you are looking for a film to confirm all your preconceptions about the Australian male ('Fancy a beer, mate?'), this is it. Not a pleasurable watch, but an oddly compelling one, and a brave film to herald the new wave down under.
Country: AUS/US
Technical: Technicolor 108m
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Cast: Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, Jack Thompson
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher exiled to the sticks looks forward to a summer recess spent with his girlfriend in Sydney. But an overnight stopover in an industrial town leads to aggressive hospitality from the locals, drinking, gambling, kangaroo hunting, and ultimately paralysis.
Review:
Gary Bond, a TV actor forever remembered as Private Cole in Zulu, is excellent here as a 'better than thou' educated man whose understandable 'can't beat 'em, join 'em' attitude leads incrementally to drunkenness, greed, fornication and animal cruelty. A kind of morality tale that seems to suggest that the greatest enemy to man's happiness is the madness brought on by isolation and implacable nature herself: only Pleasence's Doc Tydon accommodates himself gamely to his surroundings. Certainly if you are looking for a film to confirm all your preconceptions about the Australian male ('Fancy a beer, mate?'), this is it. Not a pleasurable watch, but an oddly compelling one, and a brave film to herald the new wave down under.
Country: AUS/US
Technical: Technicolor 108m
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Cast: Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, Jack Thompson
Synopsis:
A schoolteacher exiled to the sticks looks forward to a summer recess spent with his girlfriend in Sydney. But an overnight stopover in an industrial town leads to aggressive hospitality from the locals, drinking, gambling, kangaroo hunting, and ultimately paralysis.
Review:
Gary Bond, a TV actor forever remembered as Private Cole in Zulu, is excellent here as a 'better than thou' educated man whose understandable 'can't beat 'em, join 'em' attitude leads incrementally to drunkenness, greed, fornication and animal cruelty. A kind of morality tale that seems to suggest that the greatest enemy to man's happiness is the madness brought on by isolation and implacable nature herself: only Pleasence's Doc Tydon accommodates himself gamely to his surroundings. Certainly if you are looking for a film to confirm all your preconceptions about the Australian male ('Fancy a beer, mate?'), this is it. Not a pleasurable watch, but an oddly compelling one, and a brave film to herald the new wave down under.