Film Review: Snowtown (2011)

An hour’s drive north of Adelaide, the exceptionally bleak and uninviting suburb of Snowtown is synonymous with the ‘bodies in barrels’ murders that took place in between 1992 and 1999. John Bunting, along with his accomplice Robert Joe Wagner, killed twelve people they deemed not fit for society, with the majority of the bodies stored in barrels. It is the worst recorded case of serial killings in Australia’s history, and the subject of Justin Kurzel’s first feature film.

16-year-old Jamie (Lucas Pittaway) lives with his brothers and mother (Louise Harris), forming a close bond with the latest man in her life, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall). Living incredibly mundane lives, you can imagine how easily Jamie and his brothers were influenced by a charismatic man like Bunting, who immediately forms a father-son dynamic with the boys. Told through his eyes, Snowtown shows how the young man was so easily manipulated by an emerging father figure he had been lacking for his entire life.

Apart from Henshall, Snowtown is comprised of non-professional actors, and in a possible attempt to make it seem more ‘real’, is shot in an extremely gritty way. Although the performances are brilliant, they almost come at the cost of not really getting to know the characters behind them.

Bunting doesn’t only take pleasure in killing people, but in torturing them within an inch of their life. There isn’t much clarity as to why all the victims are chosen; sure, Bunting targets pedophiles and gays, but this isn’t always the case, and we aren’t given any reason as to why he chooses his other victims. Does he just enjoy torturing and killing people so much that it doesn’t always matter? Throwing us in the deep end, Kurzel seems focused on making his audience feel what is happening, rather than understand it.

The turning point for Jamie takes place when his older half-brother is tortured at the hands of John and Wagner. Extremely claustrophobic and confronting, Wagner repeatedly strangles Troy only to release him the moment before death. Troy sexually abused Jamie repeatedly, however he simply can’t handle the barbarism, stepping in, committing murder and linking himself to Bunting as a killer forever. By this stage, Jamie is in so deep with Bunting that he feels bound to him, unwilling to break the strong loyalty formed between the two.

Snowtown is hard work and definitely not for the faint hearted. However, as graphic as the violence is, Kurzel leaves just as much to the imagination as what he shows on screen. There is no moral resolution at the film’s end, but rather an epilogue informing the audience of the facts surrounding the court case and sentencing.

Definitely worth your time if your stomach holds out.

★★★★