DAILY FILM DOSE: A Daily Film Appreciation and Review Blog: Sundance 2010 - ANIMAL KINGDOM

Monday 25 January 2010

Sundance 2010 - ANIMAL KINGDOM

Animal Kingdom (2010) dir. David Michod
Starring: James Frecheville, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn, Jacki Weaver

***½

By Alan Bacchus

With “Animal Kingdom’ the debut feature from Aussie director David Michod, we are bear witness to one of the most exciting new voices in masculine-fueled muscular cinema.

Michod wears his influences proudly on his sleeve, from Michael Mann to Paul Thomas Anderson and even the new crime masterpiece from Jacques Audiard, “A Prophet“. “Animal Kingdom” is an Aussie crime tour de force of its own, an elegant saga worthy of the same breath as these filmmakers and their own great films.

James Frecheville is Joshua ‘J’ Cody, Michod’s Henry Hill, or Michael Corleone or Malik from “A Prophet“, who enters the film wet behind the ears and exits the film a stone cold killer. We first see him watching Aussie game shows on TV while his overdosed mother lies dead on the couch. With nowhere to go he calls up his grandmother to ask what to do. And so J joins up with his estranged family of criminals, who up until then had been kept separate from him by his mother. There are his three uncles, including Baz (Joel Edgerton), the paternal leader, and the lady MacBeth mother of the group J’s grandmother (Jacki Weaver). Later, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn) the most wanted and dangerous member of the family arrives and plots vengeance against the police Armed Robbery Squad which has instigated an all out bloody war against the family.

Though we’re in present day Melbourne, Michod crafts his world like the lawless west. J, the innocent, is thrown into the deep end of a precarious band of thieves. Under the leadership of Baz, the group is a disciplined family unit, under Pope’s command, he’s like Sonny Corleone leading the family into doom. J’s torn allegiances remind us of Clint Eastwood playing both sides of the gang war in Fistful of Dollars. But Michod arguably wrings out even more tension, because only we the audience are aware of the double crosses on the horizon.

As a first feature Michod is clear to project a muscular cinematic style. More specifically he’s channelling the auteur crime work of Michael Mann. His portrayal of his characters as family members first and criminals second has the same natural realism Mann adds to his genre pictures. Even Michod’s sound work and musical score is reminiscent of Mann’s ambient atmospheric soundscapes. Like Mann, Michod’s music overlaps and bridges scenes an effect which keeps the characters closely tied together.

He would appear to be a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, who like PTA, is not ashamed to slow down and admire his own work. Michod consciously lingers closely on his best shots, emphasizing the most minor of moments for heightened dramatic effect. At one point his camera moves around to reveal Pope ogling J’s girlfriend sleeping on the couch. The ironic Air Supply song which plays in the background has no real motivation being there, yet it works as the same kind of dramatic counterpoint as PTA’s firecraker scene set to Sister Christian in ‘Boogie Nights’.

Admirably Michod’s props up his admittedly thin narrative for the first two thirds with these extravagances. Under less capable hands these moments would reek of overindulgence, but Michod’s tone is consistently on the mark and thus we can appreciate these cinematic expressions as tools of a great auteur filmmaker.

‘Animal Kingdom’ is not perfect and works best as a great debut feature, the announcement of a new filmmaker to be excited about. Arguably the picture tends to sputter in the third act, but Michod admirably keeps his film under two hours, though I doubt the same will be said of his next film.

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