The Proposition

Proposition, The (2005) * Hidden Gem *

Recommendations: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009), Requiem for a Dream, Dawn of the Dead

Last updated: 2010-05-19 12:02:10 by user07

THE PROPOSITION

"Is that what we are? Misanthropes? Lord no, we're a family."

I don't think Howdy Doody would agree...

THE PROPOSITION is a film that Sam Peckenpah would call his own. From the very opening scene, a piercing gun battle that will make your ears bleed and your stomach cringe, this Aussie oat opus is a masterpiece of menance. Writer Nick Cave and Director John Hillcoat combine their talents to revitalize the Western genre and they do so with uncompromising, ferocious carnage that is as pitiless and primal as anything brought to the screen in recent years.

Needless to say, I loved this film.

Cave is best known as the controversial singer/songwriter who first shot to fame in the 1980's as head of a band called "The Birthday Party." He then climbed to greater prominence in the 1990's with "Nick Cage and the Bad Seeds." He's been quoted as saying, "I want to write songs that are so sad, the kind of sad where you take someone's little finger and break it in three places." While that may be true for his musical perspective, I can assure you his on-screen characters' trigger fingers are all in perfectly fine shape.

Guy Pearce (L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, MEMENTO) gives a menacing and memorable performance as Charlie Burns, the middle aged of three brothers, who is given the choice of saving either the life of his younger brother or his older brother by the territorial head of police, Captain Stanley. Stanley is poignantly portrayed by Ray Winstone (COLD MOUNTAIN) whose own men are as ruthless and uncivil as any of the so-called bad guys except, perhaps, Arthur Burns, the oldest brother, who commands a cult-like gang of wild Irish outlaws who are intimidating enough to play for the University of Miami football team.

"What is an Irishman but a nigger turned inside out?" asks John Hurt, as Jellon Lamb, a bounty hunter also on the trail of the Burns gang. "I came to this beleagured land and the god in me evaporated."

Yes, 1880's Australia is a bleak, unforgiving Hell made even less appealing by the urine-drenched lens of Cinematographer Benoit Delhomme, whose sickly yellow-tinted barren landscapes will do nothing for the tourist industry in Oz. Add in the ever-present flies and I think I'll pass on Quantas' Get-Away Bargain Fares. (Flies even sabotage the bonus segment interviews seen on the DVD -- hasn't anyone down under heard of Vapona pest strips?)

Danny Huston (THE AVIATOR, THE CONSTANT GARDENER), David Gulpili (RABBIT-PROOF FENCE, WALKABOUT) and Emily Watson (GOSFORD PARK, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS) round out the excellent cast -- especially Ms. Watson whose underplayed performance as Martha Stanley, the Captain's wife, is nothing short of remarkable.

The climatic Christmas Day dinner makes this one of my favorite films to re-screen during that harried holiday period. Accordingly, I can assure anyone whose family is a bit misanthropic (or considers themselves Compassionate Conservatives) that they will find THE PROPOSITION not only a worthy addition to the Western canon, but a fine stocking stuffer as well.

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Robert A. Nowotny

The Proposition: Death Rattle

The film begins with the traditional hymn Happy Land sung over black and white pictures of death and carnage: this foreshadows the murder of the Hopkins family, which we learn will propel the narrative. Suddenly, the death rattle of a gunfight assaults our senses, shocking us into awareness and action. We quickly learn that these outlaws are brothers, exiled from the Burns gang who was responsible for the brutal rape and murder of the aforementioned family. Charlie and Mikey, now prisoners, are at the mercy of the moral tyrant Captain Stanley. Charlie makes a deal with the devil: he must kill his oldest brother Arthur to free himself and Mikey.

The Captain’s justice is seemingly crueler than the outlaw’s crime: What happens when the rule of law is turned upside down? Do we sympathize with the Devil? “Just as every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints”. Stanley has come to Australia seeking to tame this rugged Outback, to civilize the natives, to bring humanity to the inhumane. This racist mentality is at the center of the film: British Imperialism brings not salvation but corruption and moral injury.

The dichotomy is visually expressed: a set of fine china, a rose garden, a Christmas tree, and a prim and proper wife, all set against this harsh panorama. Captain Stanley is torn asunder when his superior orders the lashing of Mikey that will probably kill the prisoner. Not only is the Captain’s authority questioned, but his word of honor.

The story progresses through beautifully grim and barren landscapes, the sky painted deep orange, the ubiquitous flies swarming like storm clouds. Director John Hillcoat uses empty desolate spaces to tell the story; he expands the distance between characters here at the end of the world, and crosscuts until fate writes the final chapter of their brief lives. This film is also about time, that long empty breath of mortality, because the story progresses inexorably towards the Christmas Armageddon. But diegetic time collapses and becomes inert, disconnected from reality. Like the characters, we become lost. Does Charlie lose his soul to the devil…or regain it? Final Grade:(B+)

Recommendations: The Birds, Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), Funny Games

All reviews copyright Korova, Ltd. Visit Alex at his Home Theatre Blog, http://korovatheatrepresents.blogspot.com/

The Proposition

Heart of Darkness doesn’t work with women. Oh sure, there are women who find the themes interesting, but the story is a very male myth. On the one hand you’ve got Colonel Kurtz, the guy who’s “Faced the Ultimate Evil”; on the other hand, Marlow, the man The Man has sent to kill Kurtz. An 800lb gorilla and a bad-ass; these are not characters whom girls take an interest in. In The Proposition it’s Danny Huston who plays the Kurtz-role. Guy Pearce is Marlow. Ray Winstone is the East India Company/The Man. It’s set in 19th century Australia instead of Africa. But the heart is the same, whether it’s the heart of the jungle or the bush.

It’s a Western. You know Westerns: black hats, white hats, six-guns at high noon. The only difference is: this Western is set in Australia, so there are Aboriginals instead of American Indians and camels hitched to the stagecoach. The proposition is: Ray Winstone will spare the life of Guy Pearce’s kid brother if Guy Pearce will agree to kill his other brother, Danny Huston. Winstone is the new sheriff in town, Pearce is an outlaw, and Huston is a warrior-poet sociopath. As you’d expect, the deal doesn’t hold. Blood is spilt like something out of the Old Testament. The barren landscape becomes a death-of-God metaphor. Cormac McCarthy readies a plagiarism suit.

If there’s a lead in The Proposition, I guess it’s Ray Winstone. Winstone doesn’t often play the lead; when he does, he plays “the heavy”. Casting him as a good guy here upsets your equilibrium for a while, so strong is the expectation that he should be the toughest man in the room. Here, it’s more like he’s a man who only looks like Ray Winstone; a milquetoast with a boxers’ physique, always frightened. The movie has fun with this paradox, showing us Winstone one way at the start, then doubling back. Fear even stops his sex life dead (and with Emily Watson as his wife, he must be terrified).

Guy Pearce looks, as ever, like he could use a good meal. He’s a handsome man, but he’s got the Christian Bale disease. I picture him living in a garret someplace: too Method to eat… some neglected model girlfriend in the corner, on the phone to Pearce’s agent, commiserating about another million-dollar payday he’s turned down. His teeth are filthy in The Proposition. That’s not something Russell Crowe would agree to these days. But Pearce enjoys himself. The muck, the blood… these are meat and potatoes to him. He doesn’t have much of a character to work with, but he acts like Charlie Burns was Shane. You scarcely notice he’s 2D next to Ray.

Danny Huston is the best reason to watch The Proposition. He’s been the best reason to watch any number of movies. Here it’s handed to him on a plate. He gets half an hour of other people talking about him for one thing (think what that did for Jaws). Once he’s on-screen, he quotes poetry and kills John Hurt. Huston is a courtly, gregarious, bookish kind of psycho, and the part needs Huston to make a meal out of a smorgasbord. He smiles the way a killer should, like an oven-door opening. And he kills right, directly; there’s never any hint of Huston holding back.

So why won’t girls like this? It’s not the blood (girls like zombie movies, I know girls who like gore). It’s the tone, all that mytho-poetic nonsense. I think you’ve gotta be a boy to be in awe of Colonel Kurtz… the private army-fantasy… Ultimate Darkness… all that crap. I know there are women in Heart of Darkness, but they’re there in a vagina dentata capacity, women as goddesses (a sure sign Joe Conrad didn’t date much). The Proposition is a good Heart of Darkness rip-off, but it can’t say much besides “Man, Danny Huston is cool”. The whole “life-as-Nietzschean-death-match”-thing is really just a metaphor for sexual frustration. These boys need girls.

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