The Nightingale 2018 Directed by Jennifer Kent
In 1825, Claire, a 21-year-old Irish convict, chases a British soldier through the rugged Tasmanian wilderness, bent on revenge for a terrible act of violence he committed against her family. She enlists the services of an Aboriginal tracker named Billy, who is also marked by trauma from his own violence-filled past.
나이팅게일, Slowik, Соловей
listen. i know. i know this film is supposed to make us mad. i know that we're supposed to believe this white woman had good intentions when she made this 2+ hour film of australia's black indigenous people being graphically raped, brutalised and mutilated. i know that she supposedly had her pre-production notes approved by a local tasmanian council. i know this, but i do not buy it.
it is completely disgusting to use aboriginal suffering to support a narrative of white femininity. it is extremely tasteless to compare england's crimes against the aboriginal population to what they did to the irish, and it is cruel to frame the film's singular instance of aboriginal defiance and retribution as an ugly,…
A savvy bit of Sundance programming to show this on Australia Day... which made it that much more brutal to watch. The plot is simple, a revenge story set in 1800s Tasmania - but the history that surrounds it is anything but. At school in Australia, I was taught about the “settlement” of our country by the British and the “civilization” of the native people. It was only later that I learnt how many Aboriginies were murdered in the process. Jennifer Kent didn’t hold back, showing this dark side of our history in full force. Which means, it’s not much fun to watch! Definitely not for the faint hearted, as there’s no light to be found. But there’s also no doubt that she is a filmmaker with an unflinching voice.
“What’s wrong, soldier boy? Did your mommy not love you?”
The most brutal and intense movie i’ve ever seen in my life.
People walked out, someone fainted. Completely unflinching and horrifying from start to finish, and many scenes made me so uncomfortable i didn’t want to watch anymore. Jennifer Kent is the only person who could have made this film, and her exploration of female trauma and colonialism’s impact on the aboriginal peoples of Australia & Tasmania was incredible. I’m gonna go throw up now.
I'm fully on board for the revenge film set in a time and place where its protagonists lives have literally no value to the shitty people in power, but I struggled with the bland moral handwringing over the violence here as well as the almost cartoonishly ostentatious bleakness, elements which basically cancelled each other out for me, making this mostly just a very long sit.
Some will find The Nightingale unwatchable and troublesome. The first thirty minutes alone contains two rapes and two murders. It is a rare film that wants to be despairing and succeeds on the visceral level, if not necessarily the philosophical. It does not dispense pleasantries, it is just brutal. The rapes and murders and infanticide are not presented in the abstract, they are just there, urgent and torturous to watch.
Director Jennifer Kent debuted with The Babadook, a horror film that was similarly engulfing in its unrelenting build-up of terror. As a sophomore effort, The Nightingale still has a tinge of horror. There's ghoulish nightmares, nasty deaths, and many scenes built on the tension of one character hiding from the…
Just before our screening, Jennifer Kent stood at the front of the theatre and stated that this was the most challenging film for her to make, and crucially, she branded it as her most important (not like there was much to choose from, but okay?). And from the opening scenes, you sense that this is a Serious Film, with its 1.33:1 ratio and its dim (non-existent) colour palette recalling The Witch's aesthetic and its liberal usage of "cunt" and its perpetual indulgence in misery and its glacial pacing. And of course, its themes are grand and topical, much like the remainder of the Prestige horror movement - this one tackles power hierarchies in colonialist Australia: between captain and lieutenant, between…
i would like to begin this list be addressing a few complaints that this film has garnered with its audiences.
this film seems to be pretty polarizing for its viewers. there’s a pretty minimal lukewarm or tepid response to the movie. rather, and perhaps it makes sense in hindsight, this film’s dividing point on the love it or hate it richter scale hinges on the same several points... namely, how does one view, digest, interact with, and respond to this film’s very bleak depictions of violence, rape, colonization, genocide (because that’s what it was, not war), and racial injustice? there are those who have already raced to the aid of the downtrodden (with all due respect this comment is made)…
I understand people’s issues they have with this movie, but I really don’t identify with any of them really. I don’t think it was tasteless, everything felt purposeful even if extremely unsettling and almost unwatchable. It’s hard to even express how I feel but I definitely think it’s an important movie and absolutely worthy of a watch if you are able to handle some extremely challenging imagery and subject matter. There really wasn’t anything that hit me as horribly problematic or troubling. Maybe at face value, but when digested for longer I just don’t see it in that way.
Regardless I think this movie deserves the critical praise it has gotten and I think audiences seem to be too harsh on it. But that’s just my take. I can’t say I ENJOYED the movie, but I was invested and I’m definitely going to remember it.
We discuss this film on Episode 381 of Trick or Treat Radio.
Jesus Mary, I feel like I’ve been punched in the feckin’ stomach.
(Seriously that was rough.)
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