Van Diemen’s Land
Madman
R4 DVD
Alexander
Pearce is a character which has always captured the Australian imagination. While his life was hard and violent and his crimes shocking, the
story of an Irish man’s battle for survival in the Tasmanian bush has proved a
fascinating tale for literature and cinema. Various films have been made of his life
including The Last Confession of
Alexander Pearce (2008) and a horror comedy based very loosely around him
called Dying Breed (2008). Van Diemen's Land (2009) is a new and powerful
biographical film which attempts to faithfully explore the experience of Pearce
as he travelled across Tasmania resorting to cannibal to feed his hunger.
Pearce is played superbly by Oscar Redding and the film also includes the
original words of Pearce in Irish with the English in subtitles.
While
the hype surrounding this film was quite extreme with reviewers claiming that
viewers were sick or walked from the cinema. The fact is that the film is far
more a melancholic reflection on crime, punishment and the brutal experience of
convicts both in captivity and on their quest for freedom. The depictions of
cannibalism are subtle, the violence in context and the cinematography
excellent. The whole film has a dark and foreboding look and with an excellent
score creates a powerful mood. Nature is both beautiful yet terrifying at the
same time and the Tasmanian wilderness never looked so menacing.
A
group of transported convicts, suffering brutal treatment at the Sarah Island
penal settlement on Van Diemen’s Land, tie up their jailer and escape into the
Tasmanian wilderness in hopes of reaching the settlements to the east.
Originally they was going to go by canoe but when
followed by prison guards they hightail it into the bush with only a small
amount of meat and flour.
As
their food runs out and there is no sign of a settlement, they find their lack
of bush skills a detriment of their survival. They are town criminals with no
knowledge of hunting, fishing or even what plants they can each. As members of
the group become weakened, the others kill them off one by one and eat them
until finally only one remains.
The
story is as much about the psychological of survival and the paranoia of a
group which knows that most of its number will die as of crime and murder. It
is a dark but truly reward journey into Australia’s past.
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