By Andy Ford, Warrington South CLP
Directed by Ivan Sen, a young indigenous Australian film maker, Mystery Road gives a bleak and unsettling vision of the life of the communities in the Australian outback.
The plot revolves around the attempts of Jay Swan, an indigenous detective played by Aaron Pederson, to solve the murders of teenage aboriginal girls in a small town in Queensland. Although nothing much is said outright there is an undercurrent of racial prejudice from Jay’s colleagues in the police department. Jay himself feels trapped in a no-mans land, tolerated by his police colleagues and also subject to suspicion by the aboriginal community for “helping lock up your own people”.
This film does not follow the path of other films in celebrating the Australian landscape like Walkabout or Picnic at Hanging Rock, although when Jay drives out of town on his investigations it does make an appearance. Instead, the film paints a more realistic portrait of modern Australia; the indigenous community in the town is plagued with alcoholism, drugs and prostitution. Drug-dealing lies at the heart of the murders and the misdeeds that Jay uncovers, but the film places these as both cause and effect of the bleak situation facing the community: their old culture is gone, but all there is to replace it is an existence as second-class citizens in their own country. The fractured relationship of Australia with its indigenous communities shows through even in the place names – it begins with the discovery of a body at a place called Massacre Creek and ends with a shoot-out at Slaughter Hill.
Mystery Road is a slow-burn with periods of silent observation and where many conversations are seemingly inconclusive due to the tensions in the town. Nevertheless, events move towards a climax, a somewhat unexpected shoot-out, with nods towards a traditional Western gunfight, but which works surprisingly well to resolve the action. Mystery Road is a detective story set against an unusual background and lets some telling social points flow naturally from the drama.
Mystery Road is available on BBC i-Player until 3rd October.
September 4, 2018
