Wake In Fright [M]

Meet John Grant: he’s a fine, groomed, and upstanding English bonded teacher forced to work in the arid outback of Tiboonda. When the summer holidays come, he’s all planned to go to Sydney, stopping for one night in the mining town of Bundanyabba. But his holidays are ruined when he becomes involved with the ‘yabba’ lifestyle and his one night quickly turns into many after he loses all his money in gambling and is given certain hospitalities by the locals. Now John is trapped in a sweaty, beer-soaked, dusty, and brutal nightmare, which seems to have no end. 

Wake In Fright is one of Australia’s most revered films, which is ironic considering that, when it was first released, Australians walked away from it saying “that’s not us! We don’t behave like that!” Made by Canadian director Ted Kotcheff in 1971, it’s been most famously dubbed as Australia’s “great lost film” as it was never released on VHS tape or broadcasted on television. In fact, it was only in 2009 that the movie was restored and released on DVD as well as screening at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival in which 12 people walked out during the kangaroo hunt scene. After so many years, the film still retains its shock value! 

Meet John Grant: he’s a fine, groomed, and upstanding English bonded teacher forced to work in the arid outback of Tiboonda. When the summer holidays come, he’s all planned to go to Sydney, stopping for one night in the mining town of Bundanyabba. But his holidays are ruined when he becomes involved with the ‘yabba’ lifestyle and his one night quickly turns into many after he loses all his money in gambling and is given certain hospitalities by the locals. Now John is trapped in a sweaty, beer-soaked, dusty, and brutal nightmare, which seems to have no end. 

The brutality and the rawness of this movie is what makes it such a stunner and classic in the repertoire of Australian cinema. Kotcheff depicts this horrible, drunken, and really brutal picture of rural Australia that will make the hardest of stomachs turn. The infamous kangaroo hunt scene was actually filmed during a professional hunt, which makes the scene all the more horrifying. I had my hands over my face when I watched that! It was so violent and frightening! Needless to say, there was much controversy about this film in Australia when it was first released and there continues to be today… no other Australian movie in the world has done what this one did! 

Yet for all the kangaroo-bashing, drunken, and brutal society depicted in the movie, the film also illustrates the infectiousness of the Aussie invite: it is the drink that John Grant is convinced into having by the friendly locals that eventually leads to this unimaginable outback nightmare. 

Starring Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay, and Jack Thompson, Wake In Fright is a stunning piece of Australian cinema that’s filled with violence, alcohol, drama, madness, and chaos. There are few to no words that can describe the effect that this movie has upon audiences… … …