Review #527: 'Snowtown' (2011)

Snowtown occupies the space at the underbelly of society, where the forgotten and destitute merge with mental illness and marginalised families, in a notoriously violent and broken suburb of Adelaide in Australia. It's within this demoralised, dehumanising community that provides the backdrop for a real life tragedy involving Australia's most notorious serial killer, John Bunting. Bunting (Daniel Henshall) arrives unannounced to the breakfast table of Jamie Vlassakis (Lucas Pittaway), a quiet, doomed-looking sixteen year old, and his charismatic charm, and obvious domination are illuminated as he prepares a fry-up for the fatherless family, presuming the mantle over the four Vlassakis boys.

Bunting begins a torrent of child-like abuse towards Elizabeth Vlassakis's (Louise Harris) ex-boyfriend and neighbour, who had photographed the boys naked in the opening scenes. The presumption is that he had raped the boys, but this is never explicitly revealed. Bunting's torments include chopping up a kangaroo and throwing the remains at the house of the accused paedophile, but it the way in which he "recruits" the young Jamie into these almost adolescent revenge activities, and eventually chase the man from town. Snowtown focuses it's attentions on the relationship between the dominating character of Bunting, who has assumed the role of father figure, and Jamie, who rarely says anything, and seems so beyond the fringe, that when he is sexually abused by his step-brother, he seems to simply accept it as part of life.

Snowtown is also a comment on the nature, and dysfunction of community gossip. Bunting holds neighbourhood watch-like meetings, where speculation of paedophiles and homosexuals, and their alleged abhorrent activities. It becomes increasingly apparent that Bunting uses this community heresay to select his victims, but also as a way to gauge insights into the depravity of the community. He begins to derive a sadistic pleasure by twisting the concerned people to tell the group what they would do to these people if they had them. Inevitably these "confessions" provoke violent tendencies within the group. Bunting is a true manipulator of people.

First time feature director Justin Kurzel used only two professional actors (Pittaway and Henshall), and the rest were made up of non-actors from the community that this event actually occurred. He films in the same community, which lends the film a totality of authenticity. The real events, known as either 'The Snowtown Murders' or "The Bodies-in-the-Barrel Murders' - due to the way in which the bodies were disposed of, - were perpetrated between 1992 and 1999, and Kurzel has managed to reject any of the usual trappings of the true crime film, lending it a grim realism. The spaces are empty, dull, and without character. Aside from the haunting charm of Bunting, the characters are devoid of humanity, broken to the point of catatonia. Because of these long, laconic scenes make the moments of violence all the more shocking.

With two incredible central performances, particularly from Henshall, whose Bunting balances the polar oppositions in his psychology, Snowtown is a tough film, which does not flinch from gruesome reality, facing death and torture, not in the sensational ways that the torture-porn films often revel in. This is Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) through the lens of Ken Loach. In other words Snowtown is fundamentally more real than Henry... Uncomfortably rewarding, this is devastatingly powerful film making, and it will stay with you, and haunt you, but will also leave you with a layer of grime over you, that you will need to wash off.


Directed by: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Lucas Pittaway, Daniel Henshall, Louise Harris
Country: Australia

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy