10 •Metro Magazine 195 | © ATOM
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one brother and the extroversion of the other, and thought
this contrast would bring an interesting dynamic to the
character of Philomac, who is at once the agent of chaos
and the impartial observer of the ensuing events.^4 As with
2@LRNM #DKHK@G, Thornton is able to elicit performances
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those shared between Archie and Philomac during lulls in
the drama. In one scene, the elder Aboriginal man, sepa
rated from his country and living in servitude to the violent
Mick, warns his young counterpart about the dangers of
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away from all of that blackfella shit’.
Beyond such extraction from culture,2VDDS "NTMSQX
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is blacked out one window at a time, leaving only thin slits
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soundtrack. An alcohol bottle discarded in the desert sand
resonates with the threat of aggression, and words are bran
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mering visuals every bit as strange as those we see inFata
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baked state as he rides out slumped on his horse. This im
age simultaneously recalls the conclusion of2G@MD *HRUJH
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SGD 3Q@HK, itself the inspiration for a Beach Boys album cover.
By invoking such polyvalent images, Thornton is cast
ing his work on a larger cinematic trajectory, engaging in
a kind of archetypal shorthand. This is in contrast to the
FRQVFLRXVO\VHOIFRQWDLQHGZRUOG RI2@LRNM@MC#DKHK@G.In2VDDS "NTMSQX, Thornton works on the level of allegory.
He bypasses exposition by offering quick, wordless visual
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in for a particular character type or institution that will be
familiar to viewers of westerns. Fred represents the Church,
with his ardent yet misguided intent to bring ‘civilising’ mo
rality to an occupied land. Taylor embodies another order
of faith – that of the judicial process, which can see beyond
prejudice and restore justice – while his opposite, Fletcher,
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even if it takes him beyond the realms of the law. Archie,
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stages of ‘assimilating’ into their subaltern positions within
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and Fletcher’s romantic interest, represents the encroach
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while the lawman plies his bloody trade in the outback.
Harry emblematises the military apparatus of the same
imperial project: the war veteran who returns with the acute
instincts of the coloniser to seize, with impunity, that which
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circumstances as systemic disadvantage and dehumani
sation rob her of her agency and her voice.
There is a sense of dire inevitability as these charac
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tation with one another. Thornton has acknowledged the
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intended to ‘use the accessibility of the western genre
for audiences to enter the story and be drawn into this
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people’.Indeed, the western offers a narrative template
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Hollywood westerns like+HSSKD !HF ,@M(Arthur Penn, 1970)
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preted as critiques of the American war in Vietnam, and
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