Mystery Road

Synopsis: An indigenous detective (Aaron Pedersen) investigates the murder of a young Aboriginal girl and uncovers a network of dark goings-on.

It is often said of Australian film-makers that they should be making more genre films so it is a crying shame that Ivan Sen’s fine film, part-funded by Screen Australia, is on limited release.  If anyone has shown how to do such a stunt with both style and integrity it is the talented Sen, who not only wrote and directed Mystery Road but was its cinematographer, editor and the composer of the understated score.

As with his stunning debut Beneath Clouds and his potent Toomelah Sen takes as his setting an indigenous community on the fringes of a large unnamed Queensland Outback town, a milieu which he knows well and recreates with deadly accuracy. But whereas previously the social problems were his explicit concern, here they serve as a backdrop to what is a Coen-esque story of prostitution, drug-running and seething racial tension as an inexperienced  Aboriginal detective just back from a training session in the Big Smoke goes up against the entrenched attitudes of a remote rural community, including those of his white work colleagues and his own extended family.

Sen has always impressed with his visual skills, probably the best of any Australian director working today, and Mystery Road provides ample evidence of this. His use of aerial photography to contrast the gridded, box-like uniformity of the (white) man-made world and dessicated expanse of the Outback that surrounds it is brilliant in setting the overall context and mood for the drama but his visual composition throughout is impressive, always evidently working in service of the narrative.

Whilst the performances are all effective with Pedersen a commanding still presence in the load-bearing central role and Hugo Weaving strong as his work colleague/perhaps antagonist I found the casting of many well-known actors including Jack Thompson, David Field, Roy Billings and Zoe Carides in minor roles somewhat intrusive.  There is also a climatic shoot-out at the end of the film which for my taste was too closely derived from American film to convince.  But this is perhaps the price that you pay for genre film.  Discount these two reservations and you still have a hauntingly powerful film. Find those few cinemas that are showing it and see it before it’s too late.

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