Lucky Country (2009)

Released 16th July 2009

In Lucky Country Australia is not so much mythologised as a frontier, like the American West, but more a prison – we were, after all, a colony teaming with criminals, outcasts and gold diggers. Kriv Stenders’ ironically-titled sparse psychological thriller creates an image of a country filled with desperate people fighting for survival in an inhospitable land. It’s the antithesis of Baz Luhrmann’s Hollywood fantasy version of Oz.

It’s 1902 and Nat (Aden Young) clings to the dream of maintaining a self-sufficient farm in the outback with his two children, Tom and Sarah (Toby Wallace and Hanna Mangan-Lawrence). Those aspirations, which are becoming more distant as they struggle for food and money, are given a boost by the arrival of three ex-soldiers: “strangers may be angels in disguise” says Nat. One of them is harbouring secret gold, however, and their real intentions are not so much disguised as in plain view.

As an experience, Lucky Country is not entirely pleasant. Except for the sympathetic children, from whose point of view the story is mostly told, the characters are wretched and without a moral compass. Even their father, who begins with noble intentions, is consumed by the desperate dream for his family that is always out of reach. Minimalist in its production, use of music and direction, the film somehow makes the expanse of the outback feel claustrophobic like the psyche of its characters. It successfully expressing screenwriter Andy Cox’s opinon that the land “fundamentally doesn’t want us here” but is overly sincere and not always compelling,

2.5/5