Tag: The Flood

The Flood

Posted on by Redmond Bacon

QUICK SNAP: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Django Unchained goes down under in the well-meaning but ultimately misguided The Flood, a cartoonish buffet of overwrought outback violence. While making huge leaps in terms of representation — putting aboriginal people front and centre in a story uncovering the systemic racism of post-WW2 Australian society — the film’s juggling of various tones can’t cohere into a meaningful revenge story.

The Flood starts by telling us the great betrayal of aboriginal people after the Second World War. Despite being told that they would receive equal rights after fighting for their country, they find that very little has changed. This is stressed in an early scene when Waru Banganha (Shaka Cook) is refused service in a pub when he comes back from the war.

Meanwhile his wife Jarah (Alexis Lane) is ripped from her daughters Maggie (Dalaria Williams) and Binda (Simone Landers) by the hands of the brutal and savage whites, who barely see their black compatriots as human. They are headed up by a brutal preacher and his three large sons, who basically see these woman as an extension of their property. But when Waru rushes to save his daughters, killing one of the sons in the process, it triggers a feature-length chase that recalls classic Westerns as well as the acidic work of Quentin Tarantino.

All manner of transgressive human behaviour is here, including gang rape, torture and mass murder, first shot in a deliberately jokey style before often looping back on itself and stressing the mental and physical consequences of such actions. But trying to have it both ways is an incredibly difficult tightrope to walk, something The Flood simply can’t pull off.

It does look amazing. Shot in the tropical Kangaroo Valley, it creates an unusual type of ‘rainforest Western’ that makes full use of the gorgeous and green landscape — much of it destroyed by the bushfires this year. Yet key components of the Western, such as the horse chase and the shootout, are shot in a confusing fashion, robbing the viewer of the genre’s keenest pleasures.

In fact, director Victoria Wharfe McIntyre uses a full array of cinematic techniques that distract us from the story. The film is awash in flashbacks, filter-changes, screen-wipes, ahistorical musical choices and moments shot and reshot from different angles. While showing flair for staging certain tense scenes which do evoke the best of Tarantino, the film misses the same sense of moral righteousness; muddying its message through a surfeit of style just when it should be focusing on a clarity of purpose.

Responses may differ in Australia, which has been crying out for a film of this type that uses pop culture signifiers to criticise its racist history and start some difficult conversations; yet the mixed approach to the cycles and consequences of violence lacks a proper thesis for people to really work with. Entertaining in certain moments, and displaying obvious talent from debut director McIntyre, it’s a shame this powerful story cannot get the powerful telling it deserves.

The Flood plays as part of the First Feature competition at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, running from 13th to 29th November.

The Flood

Posted on by victorfraga

Wendy (Lena Headley) is an immigration officer whose task is to reject as many refugees as possible. She’s recognised amongst her colleagues for her ability to spot bogus asylum seekers, promptly and efficiently rejecting the more dubious applications. Through her interrogation, she must figure out whether Haile (Ivanno Jeremiah) is telling the truth, or if his alleged predicament is but a concoction of an opportunistic economic immigrant.

This refugee drama takes sides straight away by noting that 70 million people have been forcibly displaced around the planet, more than the population of the United Kingdom and Ireland combined. It’s as if the entire population of the British Isles was fleeing war or persecution. Wendy does not seem to concerned about these figures, instead searching for loopholes preventing her applicants from settling in the UK. Haile’s case is a very straightforward one: he lied in his application, he does not have any dependants and he attacked two police officer upon being found in the back of lorry that crossed the Channel. All of the odds are against him.

Despite the difficulties, Haile is kind and serene, even affectionate. He tells Wendy that she shares the name with his mother. An officer interjects: “now that’s a new one”, suggesting that he is not telling the truth. The Home Office assumes that applicants lie by default. That’s a sheer perversion of justice.

At first, Wendy is the epitome of heartlessness. The perfect bureaucrat in a world where kindness and altruism are becoming increasingly rare. Or even criminalised, such as in the US and also right here in Europe, particularly in Italy. Helping others has become a criminal offence punishable with a lengthy custodial sentence. Ironically, Haile is also being penalised because of his humanity and solidarity. He refused to kill a rebel in homeland Eritrea, and he’s now wanted for “treason”. His selflessness also shows on his journey from Calais to Dover, where he risked his own life in order to save other refugees concealed inside the same lorry.

While very audacious in its message of solidarity in a world increasingly xenophobic and intolerant, The Flood is very conservative in its format. The narrative is formulaic and sanatised. All the right moral questions are asked, and yet the story lacks a little rawness, such as in the Wolfgang Fischer’s far more riveting Styx (released earlier this year). Some of the most dramatic moments (including an armed altercation between refugees and a death) feel banal and contrived. Plus the story is very predictable. You will work out in the first five minutes that the coldhearted Wendy will gradually sympathise with Haile and eventually switch alliances, culminating is a very noble gesture that could cost her her job. She is undergoing a “car-crash” acrimonious divorce involving a child, and being constantly reminded of her frailties and vulnerabilities. As a consequence, she feels compassion.

The Flood is out on demand and also in cinemas across the UK on Friday, June 21st, and then on VoD (Curzon Home Cinema) the following Monday. The film’s release coincides with World Refugee Week. Curzon is working with the Human Rights Watch in order to promote awareness of true-life stories. Worth a viewing.