Director: Ivan Sen
Screenplay: Ivan Sen
Starring: Aaron Pedersen, Ryan Kwanten, Hugo Weaving
Runtime: 118 minutes
Rating: 14A
We as Canadians are exposed to our Aboriginal culture quite a bit, with various opportunities to learn and study about traditions and history presenting themselves. However, we should ask the question, how familiar are we about other Aboriginal cultures around the world? Australian director Ivan Sen gives us an opportunity to do so by putting a spotlight on Australian Aboriginal culture in his gritty crime-drama Mystery Road.
Mystery Road follows Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen), an Aboriginal police detective returning back to his hometown, who is thrown right into the investigation of a brutally murdered Aboriginal girl. The murder stirs up hidden tensions between the folk of the small outback town and the Aboriginal people living within, leaving Jay with the task of looking past the opinions of the people to find the truth behind the young girl’s murder.
This film is a good example of how talented director Ivan Sen really is. His ability to juggle music, cinematography, and direction comes through in this rather complicated and delicate film about Aboriginal people in an opinionated community of individuals. He masterfully creates the perfect canvas for telling his story: a blank canvas, with only the obvious details and immediate facts, leaving room for the audience to reflect, understand, and deduce. This strategy is important in this film because it is not just a story about a crime that needs to be solved, but one that highlights the relationship between the locals and the Aboriginals, and the tension that exists both on a community and professional level. Sen gives his audience an opportunity to understand the facts the way they like, without providing a biased, one-angle view of the issue.
The element that shines the most though, throughout the entire film, is the performances. Sen has gathered a group of actors that can convey the various Australian accents, really giving substance to the various characters in the film. Pedersen is brilliant as the always-serious, suspicious, workaholic Aboriginal detective, truly creating a rough-edged and gritty character that gets right into the heat of things, literally. A surprise performance is delivered by the ever-talented Hugo Weaving, who brings a bit of refreshing humour and cheekiness to complement Pedersen’s performance. The one thing that may have taken away from the whole character experience is the length went to in order to really capture the authentic character profiles and their individual accents. There are some characters in the film that one may struggle to understand because of how deep their accents are. This technique really creates the character, but doesn’t give one much opportunity to enjoy the moment as they waste time trying to determine exactly what has been said.
The film, overall, is very simple. The cinematography is clean and straightforward, the music complements the various scenes, and some of the camera angles are quite neat. The one thing that disappointed me was the straightforwardness of the story. One is presented with some of the most refreshing characters seen in a while, but the simplicity of the story doesn’t deliver the full potential one wants to see. In fact, the story becomes predictable half way through the film; the audience simply knows what to expect next. If the story was toned down and the focus put on the characters, one would be able to take in more. At nearly two hours long, it becomes a bit difficult to keep focus with all the repetitive elements and the too-simple story.
Ivan Sen should be applauded for his effort in creating a film that truly pays respect to the Aboriginal communities in Australia and the tensions that exist between them and the locals. He has crafted some of the most interesting characters you are going to see and has cast talent that can really deliver them. Unfortunately, the straightforwardness of the story and the overuse of certain elements does take away from the overall experience.
