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| Images courtesy of Arrow Video |
Alcohol is a
curious spirit. It can either bring
great joy to a splendid social occasion or spell doom for those who don't know
where the party ends and Hell begins.
The saying that too much of a good thing can be dangerous when abused is
hardly new or revelatory. While the
subject of alcoholism is one which has been investigated by comedies and dramas
throughout the century of film, the stance on it's nature is usually seen in
purely black and white terms, either all good or bad. If you mention drinking movies to people,
most will refer to The Big Lebowski, Beerfest, Barfly, or
most recently, The World's End.
Few however will recall this nearly forever-lost Australian horror show
about a well-to-do's lost weekend in the depths of beer and dust, Wake in
Fright.
Recently restored from almost certain death by the Australian National Film and Sound Archive, Canadian director Ted Kotcheff (First Blood) tells the story of John Grant (Gary Bond), a young schoolteacher bonded to the barren desert landscape of Tiboonda. That the film takes place during Christmas with nothing but the heat of eternal summer only exacerbates the notion of the Outback as Hell. In transition and tired of the trappings of his locale, he makes a pit stop to the small, roughneck Outback town of Bundayabba, hoping to have a drink before his flight back to Sydney and in the arms of his beautiful girlfriend. Here he meets Jock Crawford (Chips Rafferty in his final role), the town sheriff and gatekeeper of what will soon become the booze addled landscape John Grant. Loaded with more beers than he can handle, Grant is turned loose upon the local gambling game, Two-Up. Within seconds, Grant has loses all his money. Trapped within the “The Yabba”, he quickly descends deep into Hell as he mingles with hard drinkers and begins to lose his sense of self.
Unlike other downward spiral films which depict their protagonists sliding down the slippery slope of self destruction, Wake in Fright is genuinely shocking for it's nonjudgmental look at Australian alcoholism and the hardened, crusty life of the barren Outback. In one notorious sequence, Grant is amid a group of rednecks armed with rifles, lead by the mercurial Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasance in his wildest role yet), and the band goes kangaroo hunting. The film casually mixes footage of the actors with that of a real kangaroo hunt. Animal rights activists will no doubt be up in arms over these scenes of kangaroos being shot to death, and one particularly unsettling sequence of one of the rednecks wrestling with a real kangaroo before slitting it's throat. Adding to the controversy was Australia's rejection of Kotcheff's portrayal of society as a culture with alcohol flowing through it's veins instead of blood. It's not without a sense of irony that in the years since, Australia has since gone to great lengths to preserve the film and regards it as the birth of Australian cinema. For all intents and purposes, Wake in Fright was the first Outback film that showed you can make an interesting and lasting piece set in the dusty and gritty landscape.
The film was released in some territories simply labeled Outback and over the years was almost completely forgotten. When the idea sprung about from the Australian National Film and Sound Archive that Wake in Fright was worth preserving, film restoration teams were horrified to find out the last watchable copy of the film was a damaged theatrical print scheduled for demolition. In the nick of time, Wake in Fright was rescued from almost certain death and painstakingly restored as close to the original color scheme as possible. Blu-ray owners will notice Wake in Fright isn't the sharpest looking or sounding film in their collection, and the color scheme itself has a light yellow-green look, which probably wasn't inherent in the original masters. If you watch the restoration demonstration included on the Blu-ray and see firsthand just how deeply damaged the last remaining copy of the film was, you know the team did the best they could in bringing this nearly forgotten masterpiece back to life. Circa 2024, the restoration team went back to do even more extensive restoration and color correction bringing it to it’s present condition now on 4K UHD disc initially through Umbrella Entertainment before being ported over to Arrow Video in the United States.
Wake in
Fright can be
interpreted as either an alcoholic's Hellscape, or a notion that deep within
the Outback, the only key to survival in this barren terrain is alcohol. Near the end of his rope, Grant tries once
more to reach his intended destination, and gets into an argument with a local
who simply doesn't understand why he won't have a drink with him. Throughout the film, Grant regards locals
with disgust and contempt, until he soon finds himself sharing rooms with
them. In the deserted landscape of Wake
in Fright and the trappings within its wide open spaces, Grant soon learns
you can either give up and die, or accept the bleak hopelessness of one's
existence in the Outback aided by alcohol.
You'll think twice about why you swill down a beer after watching this
one.
--Andrew Kotwicki