The Proposition
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Movie Reviews of The Proposition
Movie Review: We can still feel the baby holding her finger
Summary: 5 Stars
In the special feature documentary about how the Proposition was made, Danny Huston explains why he didn't want to say too much (best wishes) to the actors while filming because he didn't want to jinx the movie. He recalled what Lauren Bacall had said to keep his father, John Huston, from jinxing Treasure of Sierra Madre- Shut up, John, it is just a western.
The Proposition is going to haunt me for a long time. Nick Cave and John Hillcoat tell a bold tale in the best of ways - letting you figure out where the bad and the good are and telling a history that needs telling. Delhomme's photography is beautiful in how it sorts out the natural beauty and the psychological tone of the film - using that stark light to disorient our tradional ideas of what might happen and the pictures of the land and the faces to carry the plot out. Cave's music and whispering narration are alluring, frightening, exciting, and amazingly effective for transporting the imagination out of our comfort zones (through grime, racism, marital and fraternal love, and survival on the brink of humanity) through the plot.
When good actors take on a story like this, you have to be curious. Guy Pearce expands his range to playing an Irish desperado. Who would have thought that he could go from drag queen to LA cop to this stringy-haired cowboy so easily. I love the marriage of the Stanleys played by Winterstone and Watson. Danny Huston never used to be on my radar before; now he is. John Hurt is another interesting surprise as a grizzled, well-travelled bounty hunter. The script is so well written that it must have been a dream to explore who these characters were and the world in which they lived.
The Proposition is in the same vein of westerns as High Noon, The Unforgiven and probably most importantly Breaker Morant. I might not deliberately watch this again because the story is so intense and forensic in its violence, but I would find it hard to walk away if I happened upon it on television or at the house of a friend. That sound track also might tempt my mind and fingers to seek it out. That stark white light and that majestic Australian landscape and human scape has indellibly marked my mind. There is a shamonism in this kind of movie when its elements can help shake your soul with the base notes of a dijereedoo, Celtic fiddle and the percussion of horse's hoofs.
Movie Review: Nightmarish and Graphic Brutality
Summary: 5 Stars
Since so many others have rehashed the plot of The Proposition here, I will not. Instead I will make a few observations about why I think this is such a compelling movie. Be forewarned, its not at all for the squeamish. The blood, the gore, and the nightmarish graphic brutality would all combine to make this a film that would stand out for those reasons alone if not for the fine acting and cinematography that propel it to its stature as one of the finest frontier films of our time.
This is not the US frontier, but the Australian one. The Australian outback was a place far more unforgiving than much of our own West. When you remember that Australia was originally a place to which the United Kingdom shipped its excess and most incorrigible convicts and recognize that the outback was the place to which the most recalcitrant and anti-social of them were likely to flee, then you can see how the stage is set for some brutal confrontations between the authorities and settlers who want to civilize the land, and those who live by no law but their own. And instead of the Indians to deal with, Australia's settlers had the aborigines with whom to contend for lebensraum.
Here are some things to notice: the relentless shimmering heat, the constant swarms of flies, the sere landscape, the ramshackle nature of most structures (Captain Stanley's is the nicest), the omnipresent dust, the primitive nature of nearly everything and everyone including the abos, endemic racism, and the tendency to violence that seems to bubble just beneath the surface of nearly everyone, white man and abo alike. Notice how everyone rather grimly goes about their daily lives. In such an environment, there is little wonder that brutality reigned. Notice also how Nick Cave's inobtrusive score augments an overall feeling of oppression and menace in a landscape bursting with both.
As for the characters themselves, the acting is almost uniformly excellent. Even the stoic aborigine characters, while not saying much, do a fine job of lending an air of authenticity to the story. You might notice that The Proposition is entirely derivative and goes to the same well from which Peckinpah and Leone have imbibed many times before. In spite of that, John Hillcoat's film remains uniquely Australian and that's what gives it some of its appeal. If you can stomach the carnage, I highly recommend this one.
Movie Review: A Raw Story That Gleams Like a Diamond
Summary: 5 Stars
THE PROPOSITION is one of the more satisfying 'westerns' to come along in years. Just as Serge Leone created the spaghetti westerns in Italy and set a precedent that American films were to follow, so director John Hillcoat and writer Nick Cave turn the back country of 1880s Australia into a devastating impressive work of grit, dirt, lawlessness and hardship of living in the early days of Australia's distance from Britain. This is an art piece sculpted from brilliant actors, some of the finest photography on the screens today, and a film score that is breathtakingly beautiful.
Shot almost entirely in shades of umber and sienna THE PROPOSITION is the tale of a gang of brothers - Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), Mikey Burns (Richard Wilson) and hooligan and evil Arthur Burns (Danny Huston) - who have wrecked havoc on a frontier town under the eye of police Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone), married to the lovely Martha Stanley (Emily Watson), and the extremes to which the law will go to capture the worst of the perpetrators, Arthur. After a gruesome shoot out Charlie and Mikey are captured, but Captain Stanley propositions Charlie to bring in his loathsome brother Arthur to spare young brother Mike from the gallows on Christmas. Charlie rides out to find Arthur, encounters a bounty hunter Jellon Lamb (a brilliant tour de force role for John Hurt), mixes with the aborigines, and ultimately confronts Arthur. And that is quite enough of the story to relate in brief.
It is the quality of the film that takes your breath away. Not only is the acting utterly first rate by the entire large cast, but the rhapsody of imagery created by the camera of Benoît Delhomme and the haunting score from the pens of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis give us a frame after glowing frame gallery of some of the most beautiful film ever made. This is a movie so rich in story and production that it is bound to become considered as one of the greats of the western ilk. Highly recommended (for those who can tolerate a lot of violence!). Grady Harp, September 06
Movie Review: The Violence Of Association
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a movie about cycles of violence. The movie asks the question: What does it take to end cycles of violence? How does an eye for an eye ever end?
And the movie suggests some violence will not stop without relatively innocent men and women standing up against the people they love who are violent. This movie is not about good guys and bad guys. It is not about "us" and "them," where "them" is some foreign group. This movie is about the bad within our own community, our own family, and ourselves.
The Proposition or the question the movie asks is: Would you stop the violence if the person closest to you was the cause of the violence? And if you could not stop the violence, would you be willing to separate yourself from the person you love who is unjustifiably using violence and threats of violence?
This is a very graphically violent film. It does not shy away from focusing on the cruelties of violence. So, if you are a person who has trouble with violent images and getting them out of your thoughts and dreams, I caution you strongly.
This film is great. It is an important film. The film asks the viewer to weigh and compare threats and fears. It suggests that greater fears require greater measures, efforts, and consideration.
Each main character in this film is associated with another character who is using violence to achieve an objective. And each character decides whether or not to stay associated with the violent patterns.
No character "wins" in the end of this film. All of the characters become casualties to violence. And the question each viewer is left to answer for themselves is: Even though none of the characters are left unscarred by violence in the end, is the world better off because of the choices each character made? The answer to that question is not intended to be simple or clear. It is for each person to decide.
Movie Review: Heart of Darkness in the Outback
Summary: 5 Stars
"Suppose I said that I could give you the chance to expunge the guilt beneath which you so clearly labour" so said Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) to Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce). Of all the "suppositions", this one sentence encapsulates all that can said of each and every major character in the film.
Moral ambuiguity aside, Charlie Burns is faced with a devil's alternative. The vague allegory that he is plunging headlong into Dante's Inferno, also known as the wild west of the Australian outback, is also considered as a journey in the heart of darkness, Conrad-style. Only this time, the relationship between the hunter and the hunted is made more complex and familial.
Choosing between the love of his family and his own life, he values the life and welfare of his younger brother, Mikey, even more than his own. Thus, he accepted the suicide mission without much protest. In terms of priority, he values his own life than that of his flamboyant older brother, Arthur, whom he was sent to terminate "with extreme prejuidice".
Guy Pearce exudes a sense of brood and existentialism over the course of the beautifully photographed film. Danny Huston played Arthur Burns as a sort of a mythic Kurtz-like character who proceeds his monstrous deeds with a bestial instinct, but like an animal, know when the end is nigh. Emily Watson is also given substantial screentime, adding dimension to a female character in an otherwise, machismo film. The director John Hillcoat is to be applauded for giving a holistic overall development of all characters in the film. The addition of an erratic soundtrack that adds to the dread and abysmal situation in the outback severely elevates the film to a mythic proportion.