WOLFRAM Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Warwick Thornton
Stars: Deborah Mailman, Thomas H Wright, Pedrea Jackson, Errol Shand, Joe Bird, Matt Nable, Hazel Jackson, Eli Hart, Jason Chong, John Howard, Ferdinand Hoang, Aiden Du Chiem.
Warwick Thornton’s revisionist outback western works as a sequel of sorts to his award winning 2017 drama Sweet Country. Wolfram (another name for tungsten) is set in 1932 and takes place in the outback town of Henry, located near the tungsten mines of the Hatches Creek mines. Thornton has drawn upon a little-known chapter of Australia’s colonial past to shape Wolfram.
Deborah Mailman, who previously starred in Thornton’s The New Boy, plays Pansy, an indigenous woman whose young children have been stolen from her by her former partner Billy (Matt Nable) who forces them to work in the dangerous tungsten mines. Pansy and her new partner, Chinese wolfram miner Zhong (Jason Chong) are travelling across Queensland hoping to make a new start.
Meanwhile her two children Max (Hazel Jackson) and Kid (Eli Hart) manage to escape from the cruel Billy and his mine. They eventually make their way to the rundown ranch belonging to Mick Kennedy (Thomas M Wright, reprising his role from Sweet Country). Kennedy’s eighteen-year-old half breed son Philomac (Pedrea Jackson) has been mistreated by Mick, and when the two young runaways arrive at the ranch he sees his chance to break free. He leads the two children on a dangerous journey to reconnect with their mother, pursued by Mick, Casey and Frank.
And two men arrive in Henry keen to stake their own lucrative claim – the brutal and violent outlaw Casey (Errol Shand, from Safe House, etc) and his rather naïve and innocent sidekick Frank (Joe Bird, from the award-winning horror film Talk To Me, etc).
The film unfolds in four chapters, each shaped by its own sense of bleakness and the inevitability of violence but it also gives the material something of a disjointed and episodic feel. The script comes from Thornton’s regular collaborators Steven McGregor and David Tranter, and they have drawn upon family history as both Tranter and Thornton’s grandmothers worked the tungsten mines. Wolfram also looks at the exploitation of indigenous child labour and the shameful treatment of Chinese migrants and labourers working the mines.
Thornton uses the tropes of the western genre to shape his film, and it is obvious that he is a fan of filmmakers like Sergio Leone. Thornton juggles his large cast of characters and subplots deftly.
While Pansy’s story gives the material its emotional heft it is hardly the most engaging narrative, while Philomac’s story is more compelling and has a sense of urgency. Performances from the stellar cast are however a little uneven. Mailman’s performance as the grieving Pansy is largely silent here, but she also suffuses her character with a stoic quality and resilience. Jackson is charismatic and his portrait of a young adult trapped between two worlds provides the film with a strong focus. Shand exudes menace as the unrelentingly villainous Casey, while Bird is excellent as his younger protégé.
Wolfram is a visually stunning film as Thornton also doubles as cinematographer. He uses a colour palette comprising of brown and orange hues that reflect the harsh nature of this harsh and unforgiving environment. His widescreen lensing gives us a strong sense of the harsh setting, and you can almost feel the oppressive heat and the unwelcome presence of flies. The characters seem dwarfed by the epic landscapes. Michael Leon’s production design is also authentic and makes the setting another character in the drama.
★★★☆
