CIFF 2011: Snowtown

A predator joins an Australian family, turning a teen into a fellow killer. Snowtown is based on real murders in 1990s Australia. A divorced mother with several sons trusts a neighbor look after them but finds he had taken nude photos of them. This includes those of the teen Jamie (Lucas Pittaway), the middle brother. The kids pretty much fend for themselves and when their mother finds a new man, John (Daniel Henshall), he seems to be a stable and encouraging father figure to the boys.
John soon is part of the family, staying overnight, hanging out with the boys, performing male rituals such as head shaving, as well as terrorizing the neighbor so that he moves away. But we see that John is in essence the classic predator, charismatic and psychologically manipulating. First he suggests Jamie fight back to bullies, and taunting him when he does not. Soon he is involving Jamie in tests of manhood, leading up to grisly killings to prove he is stronger in character than other men and boys similar to himself. John's points of view are also very apparent--he is a bigot against homosexuals and other marginalized characters, and bully to the weak-willed. He has wholly insinuated himself into this family, showing a pleasing public face while behind closed doors his behavior becomes more and more threatening to Jamie and his family, and to the hangers-on who are among their friends.

We also see how little Jamie does to defend himself or detach himself from John, and how John has gotten Jamie so under his thumb that we cannot (and Jamie cannot) make the distinction between being a victim or being a cohort. Yet Jamie fights this dichotomy (unsuccessfully) in himself through much of the film. John knows how to involve Jamie through ritualistic male bonding then uses that relationship to force Jamie to go against his nature. John has been killing even before Jamie was aware of it, and now his little brother is heading down the same scary path as himself.

The film does a lot of "show me" instead of "tell me" and I think this is its strongest attribute. The characters of John, Jamie, and Jamie's mother are classic, classic portrayals of their roles. It's very clearcut how John is depicted, yet the film doesn't tell us beyond this point in Jamie's story, who John is and what he is--there is no sense of history to John.  The film is realistically ambiguous as to Jamie's behavior, as he's so psychologically confused he knows at once what he is doing yet cannot help but continue doing it. You can see in faces of supporting characters how careful they are becoming in John's presence. Everyone turns a fearful blind eye to John's aggression, including Jamie. Dread is pervasive in this community, and we almost feel that Jamie has no choice but to relent.

The film though does not show how exactly Jamie has become so easy to manipulate.  His real father is not a monster nor is he unavailable when needed.  Certainly the mother is weak and willing to latch on to any man who will provide for her.  Jamie's brothers are not, or have not yet, been invited into John's vicious party.  This ambiguous nature in Jamie helps with the realism in the depiction of human characters, though ugly.