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Wake in Fright 12

Wake in Fright

Ted Kotcheff

  • 1971
  • Australia, Great-Britain, USA
  • Thriller / Drama
  • 2h00mn
  • Original version with French subtitles
  • Color
After a booze-fueled evening, a young school teacher about to go to Sidney for a vacation, gets stuck in the little mining town of Bundanyabba.
Declining a drink offer - or two- is not seen well in Australia. What Michael Powell turned into a gag (They're a Weird Mob, 1966), Ted Kotcheff transformed into a night in hell. Clammy and terrifying, Wake in Fright is an ozploitation masterpiece, in which the future director of Rambo paints a merciless portrait of toxic masculinity; where individuals are nothing but monsters. In this Deliverance in kangaroo land, these animals have it bad: the horror of fiction (with a more than ever odious Donald Pleasence) is engulfed by a just as harrowing documentary reality, with an authentic kangaroo hunt that was as traumatizing for the film crew as it is for the audience.

J.G. Thirlwell

New to the Yabba, are you? 'Wake in Fright' depicts the outback of Australia as a menacing and claustrophobic space with the protagonist trapped in a Kafka-esque nightmare of trying to leave. A searing commentary on Australian machismo and the tall poppy syndrome.

Screenings

10/09 • 14h30 • Screen 100
Screening presented by J.G. Thirlwell

Credits

  • With : Donald Pleasance, Gary Bond, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay...
  • Screenplay : Evan Jones
  • Photography : Brian West
  • Editing : Anthony Buckley
  • Music by : John Scott
  • Production : George Willoughby