The Australian writer-
director on why her
brutal new film
The Nightingale is
about love, not hate.
ennifer Kent doesn’t think in terms of
genre, even if everyone decided her 2014
sleeper hit The Babadook was a horror
film on her behalf. Instead, a film is a film is a film
to her – though she says The Nightingale, if you
had to label it, is a myth about a horrific world.
Her harrowing tale of systematic abuse against
women and indigenous people in Australia is a
bloody, bruising and utterly unrelenting account
of a shameful history still barely acknowledged
by those in power.
LWLies: You filmed The Nightingale on location
in Tasmania, right? Kent: Yeah, we were
adamant we had to, even though it probably
cost us almost twice as much as it would have
otherwise. Because it’s an island about the
size of Denmark, you have to bring everything
over. I think visually Tasmania doesn’t look
like anywhere else in Australia, and that was
important. And also, this is where all this stuff
happened, it felt like we couldn’t play that out
anywhere else. It needed to be on the land where
it occurred.
Did you learn anything about the treatment
of indigenous Australians in school? I learnt
nothing. I really didn’t become aware of it until my
early twenties when I travelled up north to Cairns
and met Aboriginal people. Now it really is such
an honour to have any contact with their culture,
because I see it as really sophisticated and in many
ways a superior culture to the one that invaded it.
But this is the story that has played out around
the world. These cultures that are very balanced
and more in tune with nature, have a much more
subtle way of moving through the world, get
blasted by this really over-masculinised, opposing
force. It’s the great tragedy of that era, and the
effects of it are still very present.Australia’s colonial past still feels like something
the government – and to some extent the
country – is reluctant to deal with. Definitely.
The Nightingale premiered at Sundance on
Australia Day, which some of us call Invasion
Day. The government refuses to move Australia
Day from the date that it’s on, which coincides
with the anniversary of a well-known massacre of
indigenous Australians. And why? No reason, just
stubbornness. I think it’s the same mentality that
created colonialism. But we screened this film in
South Australia, and the audience had such a deep
response to it. I was quite worried about their
reaction. Saying things like ‘We did this,’ and,
‘We need to look at it and look at the pain caused’.
I was so proud of that audience.How do you help to tell this very real story
while also being conscious of who the story
really belongs to? As a privileged white woman,
I was keenly aware of this, and almost didn’tmake the film because I didn’t feel entitled to
tell the story. I’ve seen it in my country over and
over again – white filmmakers not consulting
Aboriginal people about their stories. It’s like
colonialism all over again, robbing them of
their voice. Before I even wrote a draft or had
a treatment, I knew I couldn’t tell this story
unless I had an equal partner – an Aboriginal
elder or consultant. And we came across Uncle
Jim Everett who was there throughout. Talking
with him but also doing an enormous amount of
research, searching through all this stuff written
by “white victors”. Even though Billy and Clare
are fictional characters, the world of the film is
real. I’m not making up this violence to provoke
people unnecessarily. This happened in my
country, and if I don’t speak about it then I can’t
make a film in that era.A lot of people have walked out of the film,
particularly during some of the more brutal
scenes. How do you make people pay attention?
Well I think you can’t. My job as a writer and then
as director is really to serve the story and to tell
it as purely and as honestly as I can – that’s what
I always endeavour to do. Then what it triggers
in an audience, or what it provokes, I can’t be
responsible for that. It would be like painting a
painting, putting it on a wall, and having to please
everyone whose eyes come across it. It’s just not
possible. But when I’m present and someone is
really angry after seeing the film, it is hard, because
the film is my baby and I don’t want someone to
kick my baby in the teeth. And also I feel a lot of
love in the film. There is violence, but I don't focus
on that, I focus on the love. That was my reason for
telling the storyINTERVIEW 071IN CONVERSATION Interview by HANNAH WOODHEAD Illustration by TOM HUMBERSTONE
Jennifer Kent
J