‘Discontent is the luxury of the well-to-do…’
The Australian New Wave was a cinematic movement that began in 1971 with Tim Burstall’s Stork, Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout and Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright and eventually culminated with classics such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and the Mad Max franchise. This was my first viewing of Kotcheff’s film and it is one of the most effective portrayals of binge drinking I have ever seen…
John Grant (Gary Bond) is a mild-mannered English teacher who finds himself marooned in a remote Australian village after losing all his money on a night of drunken debauchery. The overly hospitable locals ‘look after’ John but it isn’t long before he starts to degenerate into a drunken lout himself. Donald Pleasence also pops up as a doctor who is more interested in getting shitfaced than treating his patients.
Utterly spellbinding from start to finish, Kotcheff’s deranged depiction of a crazed descent into infamy doesn’t waste a single frame. Every sun-scorched, booze-drenched scene grabs you by the neck and thrusts you deeper into the hapless protagonist’s circle of hell until finally, we reach his lowest ebb in an unforgettable sequence involving actual kangaroos. It remains an incredible cinematic experience even so many years later – it’s no wonder that Martin Scorsese is a big fan.
Wake in Fright shocked me with just how good it is. This is one of the most underrated films of the ’70s and one of the most underrated horror films ever a visceral tour-de-force and one of the best new-to-me films I’ve seen this year.
