VAN DIEMEN'S LAND @ THE BRISBANE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
August 3rd 2009 08:20
Oscar Redding is quietly convincing as Australia's best remembered cannibal, Alexander Pearce.
If you’re at all familiar with the legend of Tasmanian cannibal, Alexander Pearce, you’ve perhaps wondered why this gruesome true story hasn’t been grafted onto celluloid sooner. The Irish penal convict’s man-eating exploits have become part of Australian folklore, frightening the pants off campfire kids and adults alike.
Of course, when it rains it pours, and film buffs have had three films in the last six months that all at least reference the story of Pearce. The horror effort, Dying Breed, had its protagonists battling for survival in the modern Tasmanian bush against a collection of fictional Pearce descendents, while the shot-for-television The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce was screened on ABC1 Australia and RTE Ireland earlier this year, covering in detail the Irish convict’s two escapes and many acts of cannibalism.
Now it’s young writer/director Jonathan Auf Der Heide’s turn with his first feature film, Van Diemen’s Land, and strangely enough the final result is about as ungruesome and lacking in tension and conflict as a film about cannibalism possibly could be.
Van Diemen’s Land opts for a coldly realistic slant as it retells the story of Pearce (Oscar Redding), who escaped an isolated Tasmanian penal settlement with seven fellow convicts in 1822. After a number of days in the freezing wilderness without food, the increasingly desperate men began to slaughter and eat each other, with only Pearce surviving to tell the tale.
And tell the tale he did when captured by the Tasmanian authorities, but they refused to believe Pearce’s outlandish story, only coming to their senses when on a subsequent escape attempt – and the film ends well before this – he was apprehended with slabs of human flesh in his pockets.
It’s clear then that this is great grist for a film, Pearce’s eventual hunger for human flesh giving Auf Der Heide licence to go nuts with his particular interpretation. But the writer/director resisted the temptation to create any sort of rollicking ride with Van Diemen’s Land, instead leaving the audience with a poetic, beautifully shot but ultimately unsatisfying narrative.
The film does indeed look fantastic, with Ellery Ryan’s lush cinematography cascading from one scene to the next, a clever choice of lenses and filters giving everything a grey and anemic quality. It’s expert work that casts the inscrutable Tasmanian landscape as yet another character, one that haunts and taunts the starving convicts.
There's no denying the strength of the visuals in Van Diemen's Land
But the great look of Van Diemen’s Land ultimately becomes more of a hindrance than a help, because it highlights how little else there is going on in the film. There’s a strange lack of tension as the men sit around the campfire at night, wondering who’s going to be next on the menu, and proceedings take a big hit early when three of the most engaging characters are ejected from the film, two leaving the group and another being the first on the chopping board. This initial victim is supposed to add to the development of Pearce’s character, but it’s a move that provides little emotional payoff given such a bold investment.
It’s underworked stuff, and in the end no amount of atmosphere can counter the lack of character, plot and action. As the convicts’ number slowly dwindles, so does the already slack tempo of Van Diemen’s Land, the film ultimately drifting towards nothing by the final frames, its meagre bag of tricks exhausted long before.
It’s a shame, because Van Diemen's Land features some excellent performances and succeeds in transporting its audience to another time and place in Australian history, one very foreign to modern life. But instead of then taking them on a journey, the film strands its viewers deep in the deserted mountains of Tasmania, with little in the way of character and plot to help find their way out.
Check out a teaser trailer for Van Diemen’s Land below:
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Mountain Fog
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Not enough gore I've heard. Maybe the director should have taken a hint from Dying Breed to really stir the pot!
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight