Ahh, Tasmania. Possible home of Thylacines. Apples. Devils. Potential paper pulp plantations. Oh, and homicidal cannibal convicts. Wait- you haven’t heard of that last one?
Well, grab your sturdiest knife and fork, have a friend over for dinner and examine that Irish stew VERY carefully as we eat up VAN DIEMEN’S LAND (Sat Nov 12, SBS- 10:20pm)
VAN DIEMEN’S LAND is a superb 2009 Australian film from director Jonathan auf der Heide about Alexander Pearce – real-life C19th Irish convict who was transported to the Tasmanian penal colony for the awful crime of stealing three pairs of shoes.
Pearce and the gang of eight fellow prisoners he was chained to staged an escape in 1822 and fled into the Tasmanian outback, hoping to find a boat to reach the mainland.
Whilst they did manage to find tools to unchain themselves, they could find neither a boat, nor food. Three weeks later, authorities found Pearce. And Pearce alone. And let’s just say that when they found him? He wasn’t hungry anymore, and nor were his friends…. Pearce had survived his ordeal in the outback by eating his fellow escapees over successive days. He’d eaten his way into getting a quote for the back cover blurb of the Hannibal Lecter cookbook.
There are no real household names in VAN DIEMEN’S LAND, but the actors are all uniformly excellent. Of particular note:
Mark Leonard Winter as Dalton; his character brings a welcome sense of initial optimism to what rapidly becomes a bleak situation
Thomas Wright as Bodenham; the youngest of the group (the veal in the stew, if you will) and the first to fall prey to Pearce’s hunger
Oscar Redding as Alexander Pearce; actually more of a background character, quiet but devastating when he makes up his mind to survive, he becomes like a force of nature. He also narrates the film, primarily in Irish Gaelic, with subtitles, and comes up with some poetic – if grisly – choice cuts of dialogue.
Tasmania itself, especially the landscape and forest, is brilliantly realised in the film. The dense bush, both beautiful and imposing, becomes lusher and more threatening the hungrier the fleeing convicts become. Like the mountain in Picnic at Hanging Rock, the Tasmanian forest itself becomes a character.
All this and a nod to gay issues too- two of the fleeing convicts are not just friends but also lovers. When Pearce begins his Masterchef Murders they actually do their best to protect each other for as long as they can- until some of the other convicts start getting hungry themselves…
Australian history, anthropology and anthropophagy! Watch it with a nice Chianti and a friend over for dinner.
Gavin Pitts
***
