The Proposition (2005)
Directed by John Hillcoat
In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.
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What critics compared The Proposition to
Turning McCarthy’s novel into a palatable feature film couldn’t have been easy, but director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe supply some arresting images of an earth that’s literally dying, shrouded in ash and littered with the artifacts of an unthinkable (and unspecified) human tragedy.
Hillcoat's earlier film, " The Proposition " (2005), written by Nick Cave , seems almost McCarthy-like.
In plot and theme, director John Hillcoat ("The Proposition") and screenwriter Joe Penhall hew closely to McCarthy's vision.
Hillcoat, whose previous film The Proposition was inspired by McCarthy's Blood Meridian, wisely shot the film in ravaged-by-disaster, real-world locations like Mount St. Helens and post-Katrina New Orleans, capturing the right balance of familiarity (abandoned malls, decaying amusement parks, still-carbonated Coke cans) and apocalyptic horror (smoke and fire on every horizon, rootless trees falling all over the place, graffiti-filled billboards that say "Behold the Valley of Slaughter").
Director John Hillcoat's previous work was the Australian western The Proposition, and his gift for highlighting how isolated the characters feel on a huge landscape is well served here.
Much is contributed by the stellar lensing of Ben Richardson (Beasts of the Southern Wild) and the beautifully spooky score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, which so mournfully echoes the one Cave created for The Proposition (2005).
It is, however, quite similar to the score that they crafted for The Proposition , and unfortunately, it’s not quite as strong.
Movies like Clay (1965) and The Spag (1962) by Giorgio Mangiamele, Sophia Turkiewicz’s Silver City (1984), Paul Cox’s A Woman’s Tale (1991), Steve Jacobs’ La Spagnola (2001), John Hillcoat’s The Proposition, Khoa Do’s Mother Fish (2010), and David Pulbrook’s Last Dance (2012) are among the many that have examined our own history of immigrants on local screens.
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Dominik lets his story build slowly, using dialogue free visuals and natural sounds to express mood (original music by "The Proposition" team of Nick Cave, who also cameos late in the film, and Warren Ellis, is one of the year's best scores).