When I first saw John Hillcoat’s film The Proposition I was literally shrinking and dumbstruck with what I had fair witnessed. As a long-time aficionado of the dread genre I could say that allotment of me has become desensitized to onscreen violence and nothing really shocks me. Even though I’ve seen films with more violence throughout its running time, The Proposition objective had a heavy sense of despair, just ambiguity, and a Miltonian feel throughout. The film felt like how it would be if one approved an offer from one of the damned to stroll down to the Nine Circles of Hell. As noteworthy as I didn’t want to win that offer the curiosity of what I might ogle won out. That’s how I was able to sit through the entirety of Hillcoat’s ultra-violent and nihilistic epic of lawless and amoral individuals in the untamed wilderness of 1880’s Australian Outback.
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I must agree with film critic Roger Ebert when he said The Proposition seemed to mirror another shaded and violent record. Hillcoat’s film shares so considerable the same themes and tone as Cormac McCarthy’s brutal modern, Blood Meridian, that one almost wondered if the film was adapted from McCarthy’s substantial current. But similarities aside, Hillcoat and Slash Cave’s (director and writer respectively) film can clearly stand on its fill two bloody legs.
The film begins with a bloody siege and shootout and we’re soon introduced to two of the three Burns’ brothers. We soon fetch out that both brothers, Charlie (played by Guy Pearce) and Mikey (played by Richard Wilson) are outlaws wanted for a multitude of putrid crimes with a fresh one the senseless rape and slay of the Hopkins family. One Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone) who acts as law in this particular situation of the Outback. He’s gives older brother Charlie a proposition. He’ll spare the younger brother’s life from the hangman’s noose if Charlie finds their older brother Arthur (played with Kurtz-like menace by Danny Huston) and kills the outlaw leader. The quest is dwelling as Charlie accepts and sets out to collect his brother. Whether Charlie will go through with killing his older brother Arthur is one thing the audience won’t procure out until the final minutes of the film. Even though there’s no love-lost between Charlie and Arthur, there’s calm the ragged bond of family that makes Charlie’s quest a complex one.
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We realize early on that Charlie is very protective of his simpler, younger brother Mikey and would do anything to build his life. Guy Pearce does a broad performance as the conflicted and brooding Charlie Burns. There’s a tranquil intensity in Pearce’s performance. He’s shapely aloof through most of the film, but one could feel the palpable rage impartial roiling beneath his brooding countenance. Pearce’s Charlie is one who is only a trigger away from exploding into outright violence. Charlie is definitely a child and creation of the lawless Outback the film is spot in.
Arthur Burns on the other hand is introduced as an almost warrior-poet who would study the sun location and spout poetry as easily as gun down an innocent or carve a man’s throat without missing a beat. Danny Huston does a bravura performance as the charismatic and wholly amoral Arthur. His performance easily matches that of Pearce’s scene for scene. Another performance that I must point out as being very strong in the film is Ray Winstone as Capt. Stanley, the Ahab of the narrative with his obsession to bring civilization to the lawless Outback and to bring Arthur Burns to ultimate justice even if it means dealing with the lesser heinous that is Charlie Burns.
The Proposition will be talked about alot for its unflinching recognize at violence onscreen. Though there’s been films that have more violence per hour than Hillcoat’s film, but the uncouth brutality of the killings, maimings and rape in The Proposition has such an air of realism to it that one cringes at every gunshot harm and knife slashing. Like Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, The Proposition’s scenes of depravity makes one want to run into the shower and cleanse off the dirt, grime and stink of the film. It’s in this unflinching and realistic portrayal of death and violence that the film shares alot with McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. The images are difficult to eye, but our curiosity makes us explore through squinted eyes to study the beefy breadth of the violence. In time, fair through the audiences acceptance of the oncreen violence do we soon become complicit in whats going on the mask.
It is a shame that The Proposition had such a tiny release in the US. I reflect this film would’ve done as well as Eastwood’s Unforgiven in giving the audience a different, darker side of the Worn West mythology (though its really the Australian Stale West) . John Hillcoat has crafted himself a brutal and nihilistic film that’s very hard to ogle but also difficult to ignore. The Proposition is a film I highly recommened people glance in the theaters before it disappears, but failing that they should search out for the dvd once its released in that medium. This film is that salubrious.
This film has often been compared to Eastwood’s spare and dusky UNFORGIVEN. There are certainly many similarities in tone. But if anything, there is even less redemption available at the ruin of this Australian western than at the destroy of that Oscar winner.
Simply effect, Ray Winstone plays the equivalent of the “modern sheriff” in a very little, expressionless dusty “western” town in Australia. The worst bandits in his set, the Burns brothers, are his valuable goal, and when he corners and captures the two youngest brothers, Mickey and Charley (Guy Pearce), he offers Charley a proposition. He and his simple younger brother will be released if Charley goes out and kills his psychopathic older brother Arthur. If not, Mickey will be hung on Christmas Day, a few days away.
The fallout from this simple proposition is bleak, bleak, bleak. The film is lifeless engaging and takes time to set tone and to let us appreciate the extraordinary Australian scenery. As John Pain (as a bounty hunter) says, it’s the most horrific spot he’s ever been. The scenery is attractive (sunsets, smart rocks) and brutal…long expanses of sand and scruff. But the dreary saunter is punctuated with moments of extremely graphic violence. Each bullet hole or knife pain (or spear injure) is painful to recognize. I’m not positive when I last saw a movie that made violence appear so terrible, so painful and so frightful.
Everyone in the film is spacious. Guy Pearce…exceedingly grubby…is torn between deciding how to deal with one of his brothers inevitably dieing. Ray Winstone gives a rich performance…impartial when we deem we’ve got this guy figured out, he shows another layer. And then another. He wins our sympathy finally. Emily Watson is his wife, and her performance is a litle colorless…it’s the biggest weakness in the characterizations. Not her fault…she’s impartial too passive to be entirely believed.
The best performance comes from Danny Huston (John’s son, Anjelica’s brother) as Arthur, the psycho. His character appreciates nature and poetry, but also raping and dreary, painful murders. He’s a conundrum that’s never fully explained…but Huston is riveting. His oily, sweaty, dirty face is etched with emptiness…I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but trust me.
Other nice touches include an intelligent soundtrack (co-written by Carve Cave, who wrote the script) and lots of stuff focusing on the uneasy melding of the “white” man and aboriginies. This adds an extra layer of sadness, and of grief, to all the proceedings.
I would give the movie 4.5 stars, if I could. It doesn’t quite arrive 5 (the bound is objective occasionally over-indulgent…a couple of semi-important characters unbiased topple from the legend), but it’s very compelling, very brutal filmmaking. NOT FOR KIDS!!!
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