Wake in Fright (1971, Ted Kotcheff) (Patreon)

53/100

Not what I expected at all, and maybe that was a problem. Because the title suggests a horror movie*, I quickly assumed that I was watching something like an outback Wicker Man; for an absorbingly vivid hour or so (two-up was entirely new to me, for example), I looked forward to discovering just what dark secret "The Yabba" holds and how our naïve hero would eventually be threatened. In theory, the "revelation" that John Grant's enemy is internal rather than external—that he's at war with his own atavistic impulses—should have excited me further. In practice, however, I found it difficult to empathize with Grant's predicament, which in turn hindered my ability even to recognize said predicament for what it was. (One of my notes, taken I believe during Hynes' party, is just the word "assimilation?" I still wasn't sure.) By no means, certainly, do I blame Gary "Not U.S." Bond, whose performance expertly straddles the line between thinly veiled condescension and genuine curiosity; how this role failed to springboard him into enduring stardom à la Guy Pearce I have no idea. Still, when Grant starts to find himself seeking the approval of Pleasance and his cohorts, I related solely on an intellectual level, without feeling any tug whatsoever myself. Which meant that his subsequent bout of self-loathing didn't have much emotional impact, either. Other movies have made me identify with truly appalling behavior, so in a critical vacuum I'd probably conclude that the future director of Switching Channels and Weekend at Bernie's simply wasn't up to the task. Virtually everyone else considers Wake in Fright terrific, though, so the disconnect must be rooted in something more subjective and personal. 

Which brings us to the kangaroo-hunt sequence—easily one of the most distressing things I've ever witnessed in a movie. (Most distressing by far: the Nigerian segment of Michael Glawogger's documentary Workingman's Death, which depicts literally dozens of animals being slaughtered. You're literally just watching a dude cut throats for minutes on end.) I'm aware that the kangaroos in question were not killed "for" the movie, and have made my peace with unsimulated hunting/bloodletting in other classics—Rules of the Game, Apocalypse Now, etc. Still, this is rough, and while it's supposed to be rough, I suspect that Cook's novel would have a better shot at keeping me mentally aligned with Grant, by virtue of an interior monologue plus not having to actually show the poor things pinwheeling through the air or trying to hop away on broken limbs. It's so viscerally horrific onscreen that everything thereafter played to me more like a Sonderkommando uneasily trying to pal around with Auschwitz guards than like the intended urban/rural divide. (You could make that movie, perhaps, but it'd take razor-sharp judgment.) In other words, I went from mistakenly assuming a good-evil dichotomy to appreciating the film's unexpected moral complexity...and then pivoted back to good vs. evil while the film continued insisting on shades of grey. Part of this reaction may reflect my traumatic experience of being dragged on my stepfather's hunting trips as a little kid, I suppose. But I was likewise quite immune to all the drunken camaraderie and roughhousing to which Grant becomes drawn. "Under the right circumstances, you, too, might become a monster" I can buy; "Down enough alcohol and you'll think these guys are cool and want them to like you" is somehow a much tougher sell for me. 

* The first screenplay I ever wrote, way back in 1990, was called The Skeleton—a reference to metaphorical skeletons in the closet. (Story's more like Trouble in Paradise with retail shoplifters, though I hadn't yet seen that film.) When I landed an agent, many years later, he insisted that I had to change the title: "People will think it's a horror movie and feel cheated when it isn't." I resisted at the time, but upon reflection, he was probably right. That script is now called Rob You Blind.