The Flood

One can definitely say that writer-director Victoria Wharfe McIntyre’s debut feature is a work of passionate commitment by someone with considerable experience in film-making (Ms McIntyre has made a handful of short films previously) but to proffer more than that is a Sisyphean task.

Roughly speaking her film deals with the tragedy of “The Stolen Generation” in modern Australian Aboriginal history when in an post-war attempt to “assimilate” the indigenous inhabitants into Anglo-Saxon society Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their parents by the White authorities and made to live with White families. 

It does so through the story of Jarah and Waru (Alexis Lane and Shaka Cook) and their two daughters Binda and Maggie (Simone Landers  and  Dalara Williams). Waru signs up for military service in WWII on the promise of full Australian citizenship when he returns. This promise is not only not honoured but instead when Waru goes to the farm owned by the Mackays where his family has been indentured a fight breaks out and one of the Mackay twins (of course ,they had to be twins, one good, one bad) who has been sexually abusing the older daughter, Maggie, is killed by Waru who flees with his youngest. The eldest brother Shamus Mackay (Dean Kyrwood) assembles a posse of leering droogs and goes in pursuit. He slaughters Waru and Binda and a group of Aboriginals with whom they have taken shelter (I think but am not certain including father and daughter) and in retaliation Jarah institutes a campaign of take-no-prisoners revenge.

Promoted as a Western but not set in “The West” (it was filmed in the rainforests of Kangaroo Valley on the East Coast of New South Wales  halfway between Sydney  and Woolongong) at a time (1945) when the American  frontier was well and truly tamed. Although stating the seriousness of its subject matter with some opening titles, it is pretty much a straightforward revenge thriller intermingled with the American action comedy (2011's 2 Guns comes immediately to mind but instances are legion) complete with kinetic  shoot outs and a photogenic, fashionably-attired cast (many non-professional) whose roots are in Raiders of the Lost Ark rather than the Australian bush. 

If the plot is basic, the surfeit of characters makes it hard to follow (I’m not sure if there were two daughters for instance) and Ms McIntyre has a fondness for “post-modern” gimmickry worthy of Baz Luhrman. Hence we get repeating scenes, overlaying explanatory sur-titles that explain little and a radical (if amusing  hardly in keeping with the overall  tone) segue into a pop music number. Hang around for the end credits and you’ll be rewarded with some post-feminist comedy (or whatever it is supposed to signify). Ohh, and there are also passages of art-house inclined “mystical” reveries which for no apparent reason include Pacific Islander people.. And did I mention the occasional wink, wink sound effect?

Whilst one assumes that this all made sense to Ms McIntyre as the scenarist it considerably lessens the anger she wants (presumably) us to feel  particularly as at the same time as director she tends to pull her punches notably for example the rape scenes (and you’d think these would be the most important) which are filmed like instances of grotesque canine frottage.

Innovation and experimentation may be commended but whilst Ms McIntyre apparently intended to bring a shameful part of our history to wider attention by giving audiences a genre-busting crowd-pleaser what she has actually turned is so burdened with narrative and formal dissonances as to be likely to please very few punters and a cross to bear for the rest of us. Kevin Scott’s cinematography often impresses but one can only imagine that editor Cindy Clarkson was kept bound and gagged in the corner during post-production. 

FYI: For better films dealing with related matter see Fred Schepisi’s classic The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978), Philip Noyce’s Rabbit Proof Fence (2002) and, more recently, Stephen Johnson’s High Ground (2020).

 

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