FILM CHALLENGE: 139) The Propostion

139) The Proposition

Director: John Hillcoat

Year: 2005

Plot Summary: A lawman apprehends a notorious outlaw and gives him 9 days to kill his older brother, or else they'll execute his younger brother.

Ranking right up there with the very best of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone, this savage tale of 1880s Australia is one of the finest Westerns that has been made since the 1960s.

However, while it certainly deserves to be compared with the aforementioned filmmakers' work, The Proposition quite effortlessly breaks the mould of the typical Western conventions. Here, for example, there are no heroes and no villains like you'd normally find in movies like The Searchers or Stagecoach and musician Nick Cave's screenplay is far more complex than your everyday morality tale. Every character, instead, is morally ambiguous and, within a matter of minutes, can switch from being a 'good guy' to being a 'bad guy. Mikey, the youngest brother in a gang of murderers and rapists, is a good example of this as, despite the terrible things he's done, he is someone so fragile that you sympathise with him. Sure, he's the killer of a pregnant woman, but he's portrayed here as one of the protagonists. Moreover, one of the villains in The Proposition is the cold-hearted Eden Fletcher, but this a man who is determined to bring the criminals to justice and seeks retribution for their actions.

These types of characters perfectly symbolise the main theme of The Proposition: The uncivilised nature of Australia during this era. So, in fact, does the direction by John Hillcoat who just last year made his debut in American cinema by adapting Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. His contrast of the beautiful, sunset soaked Australian landscapes and the brutal and graphic imagery of stabbings, dismemberment and a particularly upsetting scene of Mikey being given 100 lashes, gives a visceral weight to the aforementioned theme. Similarly, Nick Cave, the famous musician who penned the screenplay, helps emphasise it by creating dialogue that, much like his incredible music, is a gritty hybrid of lyricism, poeticism, foreboding and fierceness.

Most importantly though, The Proposition is just a compelling and thoroughly captivating work of cinema that proves Australian cinema is among the most artistic and unconventional in the world right now and is telling stories that, arguably, are equally as good as anything out there. A bloodthirsty and oddly beautiful story of violence, family and Australian history.

5/5

By Daniel Sarath with 2 comments