The film is set during the ‘Black War’, a bloody guerrilla conflict which was effectively a genocide, and we see the bodies of lynched Aboriginals hanging from treetops.Jennifer Kent follows up The Babadook with a gruelling yet vital portrait of colonialism in 19th century Tasmania.įollowing 2014’s maternally-oriented ghost story The Babadook, director Jennifer Kent’s second feature The Nightingale has proved far more divisive with critics, many of them decrying its representations of sexual violence as gratuitous. The British soldiers are drunk and dangerous the remnants of their sadism are littered everywhere. Hawkins’ inhumanity, the film sagely observes, is merely a symptom of a system designed for it. But Kent’s script and Claflin’s performance sneak in little moments of insecurity that hint at his true motivations a goading line from Clare about his parents’ love, or lack thereof, is particularly telling. With such relentless cruelty, it’s almost a one-note character. Hawkins shows no scruples and no remorse for the shocking number of crimes he racks up through The Nightingale, driven by old-school English entitlement, the arrogance of colonial power, and a lust for climbing the ranks.
But here, in this context, the cruelty seems to chime with the historical record. In another film, Sam Claflin’s Lt Hawkins might be a villain of almost absurd proportions. If you thought the Babadook was evil, you truly ain’t seen nothing yet. Kent finds humanity and an approximation of optimism in Clare and Billy, but the worst of humanity is on show everywhere else. He looks like he’s been doing it for years. Unbelievably, it’s Ganambarr’s first acting credit. The scene in which Billy - after being offered the rare dignity of being allowed to sit at a table to eat a meal - breaks down in tears at what his country has become, is as powerful as they come. Ganambarr, for his part, is extraordinary, in a performance that manages to be both darkly funny and flooringly heartbreaking. You can’t deny the profound power of this kind of filmmaking. Like most white people of that time and place, she is thoughtlessly racist, and her evolving relationship with Billy (Ganambarr), the Aboriginal tracker who guides her through the Tasmanian bush, forms a fascinating cornerstone for the film. Clare is determined, and stubborn to a fault, in her mission to exact some grisly justice for the crimes committed against her but she is also decidedly imperfect. But she’s superb, and immediately compelling in a complex role. Franciosi - until now, best known as Jon Snow’s mum in a small Game Of Thrones role - gives a tough, deeply vulnerable performance that can’t have been much fun to film. Taking the brunt of the nightmare is Clare (Franciosi), an unwilling immigrant to this corner of the British Empire.
Kent doesn’t want us to look away to do so almost seems like ignoring the crimes of the past. Some will feel it even crosses a line, but it solidifies and deepens the journey that the characters go on - and, crucially, feels appropriate for this historical context. There are multiple graphic rapes and murders within the first 20 minutes, shot with an intensity and a resolve calculated for maximum viewing discomfort. The film’s opening act is about as savage and distressing as mainstream cinema gets. The setting here is deliberate and piercingly important: colonial Tasmania was witness to some of Britain’s most notorious and shameful crimes, and the film attempts to grapple with the impact of such brazen, callous disregard for humanity, all while focusing on a singular story. But, like last year’s Revenge, this has loftier claims than the old ’70s template. On paper, The Nightingale fits securely inside the ‘rape-revenge’ subgenre: a female protagonist is brutally assaulted, then seeks bloody retribution. It is also, arguably, a marked step-up and maturation as an artist. There are horrors here, but it is more expansive and ambitious than her claustrophobic first film. But with The Nightingale, she is trying something markedly different. The result was a horror film with unusual tenderness and obvious craft Kent’s top-hatted ghoul was easily welcomed into the horror canon (and, inadvertently, the LGBT community, who adopted the demon as one of their own). She took one of the most ancient tropes in horror - the boogey-man - and morphed it into a metaphor for grief and death. With The Babadook, Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent announced herself as a significant directing talent.
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