Film Festival 09 - Wake In Fright
Wake in Fright
Australia/USA 1971, 114m
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Festivals: Cannes (Cannes Classics), Sydney 2009
A brilliant, graphic broadside against Aussie mateship, Wake in
Fright is an exhilarating blast of righteous alienation penned in
the 60s and a legendary hard-to-see classic of 70s cinema. Brit
actor Gary Bond is John, a cool handsome young blade from Sydney,
working out his Education Department bond in an outback school.
He's heading home for Christmas when he's stuck in Bundanyabba
(actually Broken Hill) at the mercy of the belligerently hospitable
locals. "All the little devils are proud of Hell," explains Donald
Pleasence, as the town's alcoholic doctor (and living health
warning to educated blokes). The orgy of booze, brawling, gambling
and brutal sex is realised with stunning credibility by Canadian
director Ted Kotcheff and the actors - young Jack Thompson is
prominent - are scarily into it. The notorious kangaroo hunt - a
drunken rampage of destruction - is as shockingly exciting as long
reputed in this superb digital restoration.
