Sydney Film Festival 2014 - Film Review - The Rover

Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson in a still from The Rover

Screenwriter and director David Michod in collaboration with Guy Pearce has brought to the screen a new dark and violent film, The Rover which depicts Australia 10 years after economic collapse and in a state of lawlessness and disorder. Michod, best known for winning the 2010 World Cinema Jury Prize at Sundance for Animal Kingdom, has created a particularly bleak image of a country being exploited for its' natural resources (the mines are still operating and large ore trains with Chinese characters stencilled on the rolling stock can been seen moving across the desolate landscape) and life is cheap. 

The film plot is centred on a man named Eric (Guy Pearce) whose car has been stolen by a gang and the film is essentially a road movie as Eric blasts his way across towns in search of the gang and his car. Along the way he forms an unlikely alliance with Rey (Robert Pattinson) the younger brother of the gang leader who was left behind after being wounded. They finally ambush the gang with deadly consequences.

Shot in South Australia with unusual lighting effects, this film is simple and quite thin in structure relying on high level violence and shootings with close-ups of Guy Pearce looking rugged. Robert Pattinson is exceptionally good as the unbalanced Rey (and far removed from his Twilight days) however a Dirty Harry meets Mad Max nexus, this film is not despite the Director's vision. During Q & A at the SFF, David Michod admitted that he wrote the screenplay for this film during the period following the GFC and the abandonment of a carbon tax by then Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd. His perspective was formed by these negative events. Clearly the film reflects this fact and is a one dimensional effort at best.

Sydney Film Festival 4-15 June 2014

The Sydney Film Festival (SFF) for 2014 is well underway across multiple screens in five venues (State, Dendy Opera Quays, Event Cinemas and the Cremorne Orpheum) with the talks and industry forums held at the Hub at Sydney Town Hall (which also features a well-patronised bar). Dovetailing on the Vivid Festival, the SFF presents a wide diversity of genre of film from across the world. Often film-makers pick up a certain theme in their work from the previous few years of work before bringing the finished product to the screen however at this year's SFF, a common perspective or sentiment is hard to detect perhaps reflecting the uncertainty across the globe at present.