I highly recommend Snowtown, the debut feature from filmmaker Justin Kurzel, about Australia's notorious serial killer John Bunting and the Snowtown murders.
Snowtown is one of the best, most underrated films of the year.
It is a triumph in performance, Daniel Henshall, especially, is chilling as John Bunting. He moves effortlessly from charming to menacing. The triumph though is giving us one of the most naturalistic performances of a serial killer ever. He makes Anthony Hopkins' Dr. Lecter look like a cartoon. Everything about the performance is grounded in reality. Henshall brings a kind of "blokeyness" that's immediately recognizable. We know this man. We know that he doesn't just exist in movies. It makes the hideous acts of violence all the more scary.
The director has a masterful handle of tone, mood and atmosphere. To watch the film is to feel the temperature drop in the room, to feel that something terrible is about to happen at any moment, to feel deeply anxious for the running time. A read of the Wikipedia page revealed just how historically accurate the film is, and yet, it never felt regurgitated or banal like so many films "based on a true story" do, on the contrary, the film is artfully constructed with some stylistic touches that Jeff Nichols, Andrea Arnold or Lynne Ramsey would envy.
I loved it.
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