Sweet Country is a visually stark and poetic train of thought movie that chronicles the events surrounding a fateful encounter that leads to an upheaval in the lives of everyone connected to it. Set in Australia during the early 1920s, it is an unsettling account of a story passed down for generations finally depicted in film that confronts the brutal reality of history without a romantic lens placed on the idea of life on the frontier.
As an American, I found Sweet Country extremely difficult to watch because while I knew the basic premise of the plot and correctly guessed how things would unfold, I still could not brace myself for what would happen and how it would play out. I found myself off kilter because I was not sure how things worked. I don’t know much about Australian history even though I could surmise that colonizers treated Indigenous Australians like all natives after an invasion, especially if their skin is darker; however I was not prepared that they were treated like slaves and had no say in whom they would help or where they would go. It appears that a boss could order you to go and work for someone whether or not you wanted to work for that person or not. The Aborigines did all the labor, but it seemed as if they were satisfied as long as they received food and lodging, but it also seemed as if others were not as lucky and had no recourse. For all intents and purposes, it is slavery, but this movie is less interested in the logistics of exploitation than the psychological and personal ramifications for individuals on both sides.
Sweet Country is respectful and never bows to sensational sensibilities while still managing to convey in an unflinching manner the impact of casual violence against the Aborigines on all Australians. Even so, I found a rape scene more disturbing because the screen is completely blacked out to reflect the darkness of the room, but the economical use of sound was more devastating than anything that I could see and less open to infuriating debate about consent. The tenor of the scene is unmistakable, and the filmmaker’s respect for and allegiance with the woman is reflected by this sensitive yet unflinching depiction.
If I wanted viewers to take away one lesson from Sweet Country, it is that if you congratulate yourself for not treating people badly or being biased, please do all your vulnerable friends a favor. If you know that someone whom you associate with, whether professionally or personally, does not share your sensibilities, especially if that person has a history of violence or alcohol abuse, do not expose your vulnerable friends to that person even if you warn them to be careful around that person. Why put a vulnerable person that you have a closer allegiance with in danger? What is your priority: keeping up appearances of a functional, fictional society that does not exist or the safety of others? Because if it is the first, then you have betrayed your ideals and allied yourself with the basest elements of society regardless of how you distinguish yourself in personal conduct. You are complicit and guilty in anything that follows. Speaking as a vulnerable person, it makes me question the judgment of that person no matter how personally endearing I may find him or her and whether or not I should continue to associate with that person.
Sweet Country’s narrative is unique in the way that it visually depicts events. It is not linear, but evocative. Just as in real life, this film’s editing reflects the tangents of interior life: a moment may remind you of something else, a tall tale of bravado may not reflect what really happened or a memory may arise. While I found this technique more realistic than the artificial narrative usually constructed in cinema, it could be confusing for viewers unaccustomed to anything but an illusion that a movie tells you definitively one version of events. Still even the most conventional viewer will appreciate the opening scene of stirring the pot by throwing a white substance into boiling black liquid. Talk about a dead on visual metaphor until it is practically literal.
One of Sweet Country’s goals is to confront the film construct of the Western versus the reality of frontier life, specifically the romanticization of the rugged, capable settler and the outlaw. The veterans in this film would like to believe that their survival signals an ability to conquer any environment whereas they are at the mercy of those whom they hate then show no gratitude to their saviors. They are oblivious to how barrenness of their interior life. There is a clash of the image of civilization versus the reality of the life led by those who would like to believe that they are bringing it to the wilderness. Instead they are an unruly, drunken, violent bunch that actively rejects institutions of law and God.
Sweet Country’s filmmaker made a deliberate choice to show the colonizers watching a silent film called The Story of the Kelly Gang and name the central Aboriginal character Sam Kelly, who is treated as if he is an outlaw, but is the only one with a true allegiance to the law of God and man. I was intrigued at the idea of Sam being the only true Christian character in the film who lived according to his ideals, especially his self-sacrificial and unconditional love for his wife. I did not completely understand why he was in the center of the clash between the colonizers and the natives considering that he was an Aborigine as well, but for me, he represented the best of both societies just as Jesus was fully God and fully man. Sam is a symbol of the future for Australia, an intersection of Aborigine and settler without the problematic impulse to align himself with the worse elements of the settlers and the stereotypes of the Aborigines like poor, little Philomac, who may be an unfortunate, unintended trope of the tragic mulatto though that may not be obvious until near the end of the movie.
Even as I appreciated the beauty and artistry of Sweet Country, I found its deliberate pacing difficult and found myself distracted. I think that it is a film better viewed in the theater than at home so you can be fully immersed without room for escape in the world projected on screen instead of desiring a merciful distraction from the unrelenting, oppressive atmosphere contrasted with the open landscape. Sometimes I could not read the occasional subtitles because it was over a lighter background so messages were lost in translation.
If you have watched and enjoyed Australian films before or are comfortable with films that tell stories visually without a lot of explanatory dialogue, then Sweet Country is a must see film. More conventional viewers should probably not make this film their first Australian film, especially if they are unfamiliar with unconventional film narratives, but if you are open minded, then you should definitely give it a chance. Still even if you walk away astounded by its brilliance, you will still leave disturbed by its implications.