Despite being a land where criminals used to be deported to, Australia has not much to offer regarding serial killers. Ivan Millat, known as "The Backpackers Killer" was arrested on the 22nd May 1994 after stabbing and shooting seven victims to death. All backpackers and aged between 19 and 22. He was until then the most notorious serial killer Down Under. In 1999, John Bunting was found guilty of the murders of eleven victims, under the name of "The Snowtown Murders". Based on this true series of events, the attempt from first-time feature director Justin Kurzel to retrace "The Snowtown Murders" does not quite convincingly build an emotional rapport with its audience.
Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) is a sixteen-year old kid living with his mum, Elizabeth (Louise Harris), and his two younger brothers - Alex and Nicholas - in a housing trust home in Adelaide's northern suburbs. The family is surrounded by violence and hopelessness. After a neighbour sexually abuses the boys, Elizabeth has got no choice but to ask her new boyfriend, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall) to protect her family. John, who soon appears to be a homophobic psychopath, with a serious anger towards paedophiles, is at first bringing stability to this chaotic family. John is a protector. He is the male structure that the boys needed but as the months pass, John will indoctrinate Jamie into his world, a world of malice and crime and will move from the protector to the mentor. He will soon introduce the teenager to firearms by asking him to shoot his own dog. Not long after, Jamie will become more and more involved with the murders under the instruction of Bunting.
In 1999, John Bunting, Robert Wagner, Mark Haydon and James (Jamie) Vlassakis will be arrested and charged with the murders of eleven people with the remains of eight victims founded in barrels of acid located in a rented former bank building in Snowtown, 145 km north of Adelaide.
With such a spooky and ugly story combined with an independent low-budget cinematographic picture, "Snowtown" had all the elements to be a masterpiece. Unfortunately, the movie settles into a very low-pace "arty" wannabe and does not succeed to convince.
Visually, it is very pleasant. The work on the frames guides you through the 119th minutes quite easily despite a dragging slow rhythm that is wrongly justified by director, Justin Kurzel alongside its detachment as a "banal brutality". Most of the shots are audiovisual paintings of the beautiful South Australian countryside. The visual structure is perfect and is strongly reinforced by a soundtrack which while being over-used in the triller-movie genre is nevertheless efficient.
Due to this focus on creating some kind of "arty" and strongly proud independent movie, the length of the shots strongly affects some space for some key points of the story. Many characters come and go and die without giving the spectator any chance to get attached to them or even just to know who they are. And regarding the acting it is obvious that Kurzel, by using non-actors, tried to create something a bit more real but has again failed. It is in fact pretty painful to see the main character, who is in fact Jamie more than John, dragging this "slap face" all along the 119 minutes. On the positive side, the performance from Daniel Henshall is spotless. Very credible in his character, he embodies the perfect image of a serial killer ; calm, in control of his thoughts and his actions and with a malicious and disturbing smile that makes him almost likable for the spectator.
To conclude, despite a visually well achieved first-time feature, "Snowtown" is not as convincing as it could be due to its high aspiration to be an "arty" movie. Awarded by the outdated Cannes Film festival - where anything that is not from Hollywood is a masterpiece - "Snowtown" will be easily and happily forgotten compare to "The Snowtown Murders", painful and horrible memory for thousands of people.
