If there is one genre the Australian film industry manages to pull off par excellence, it’s bogan crime. Bogan crime doesn’t have the glamour of a Scorsese movie, we leave all that glamour stuff to Baz Lurhmann.
Bogan crime is usually set in stark outer suburbia, where alienation is worn like a cheap cologne and the only appearance glamour ever makes is a Cold Chisel ring tone on the lead character’s beat-up Nokia.
Last year the film was Animal Kingdom based on a Melbourne crime family, this year it’s Snowtown based on the multiple murders that took place in South Australia dubbed as ‘The Snowtown Murders’, also known as the ‘Bodies in Barrels Murders’, concerning the murders of 11 people between 1992 and 1999.
The crimes were uncovered when the remains of eight victims were found in barrels of acid located in a rented former bank building. The story of this film focuses on murderer mastermind Bunting’s influence over the youngest, Jamie Vlassakis (played by Lucas Pittaway) alongside the forever charming, if sinister, talents of Daniel Henshall playing Bunting.
Snowtown has received the kind of multiple rave reviews, where there’s only one word used on the poster – ‘brilliant’, ‘masterpiece’ and ‘triumph’. This is a gruelling piece of Australian cinema resplendent with a hard-bitten aesthetic or ‘commission flats chic’.
It may not bring in the starry-eyed tourists as Baz’s movies do, but it will be another fine contribution to an home-spun genre of filmmaking that Australia is being internationally admired for.
Snowtown opens May 19.