Jindabyne (2007)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Sick Product of a Sick System

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Ray Lawrence's Jindabyne is as haunting as motion pictures get, and hasn't left my thoughts since I saw it in a small independently run cinema some ten years ago. When a film is set in Australia, you know right of the bat it's going to have an eerie, striking story to tell. It's a vast, lonely place in areas, full of secrets and unexplored areas. Gabriel Byrne finds himself in a tricky situation of his own doing, playing an Irishman living in a small, isolated fishing village deep in the mountains. While on an expedition with his mates, he comes across something harrowing along a desolate stretch of river: the body of a murdered aboriginal girl. Here's where he makes a fatal mistake.. instead of reporting it instantly, he continues over the weekend with his trip, waits until he's back in town and then notifies the authorities, leaving her right there in the water. Once the details emerge, this causes a royal nightmare of controversy, racial tension and upset, including his wife (Laura Linney) who is horrified by the borderline inaction on his part. Was he wrong? Definitely. These snap decisions during times of great stress are common though, reactionary function not always falling into the place of logic, resulting in a mess such as this. Now as you can tell by my review, most of the film focuses on his actions and their repercussions, not so much on who killed the girl, or why. We see her in an unnerving prologue on some faraway highway, lured to a rest stop by a mysterious trucker, and then we see her alive no more. The trucker appears again throughout the film on the fringes of the main story, but never are we given clarification or catharsis to the murder side of the plot. That to me is an ultimate mood setter and thorn in the side of resolution. The cumulative result of her being found is simply an unrest hanging over the region like a blanket of uncertainty, matters only clouded further by Byrne and the storm he created by not acting right off the bat. Uncomfortable viewing, but beautifully made and not a film one soon forgets after viewing.

Australian screenwriter and director Ray Lawrence's third feature film which was written by Australian playwright and screenwriter Beatrix Christian, is an adaptation of a short story by American author Raymond Carver (1938-1988) called "So Much Water, So Close to Home" from 1977. It was screened in the Special Presentations section at the 31st Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, was shot on location in Jindabyne, Australia and is an Australian production which was produced by producer Catherine Jarman. It tells the story about an Irish mechanic and former rally driver named Stewart Kane who lives in Jindabyne with his wife Claire and their son Tom. Whilst his mother Vanessa is on a visit, Stewart and his three friends Carl, Billy and Rocco goes on one of their private fishing trips. Away from their everyday lives the men enjoy the gracious peace of nature, but out there in the silence Stewart notices a woman's body in a river.Finely and precisely directed by Australian filmmaker Ray Lawrence, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints draws a quiet and moving portrayal of a marriage, a relationship between a 7-year-old girl and a boy, a strange choice and a crime. While notable for it's naturalistic and atmospheric milieu depictions and sterling cinematography by cinematographer David Williamson, this dialog-driven and narrative-driven story where a community becomes so engaged with placing guilt at a group of men who acted against their better judgment that they disregard looking for the actual perpetrator, depicts some empathic and enigmatic studies of character and contains a prominent and efficient score by Australian composers Paul Kenny and Dan Luscombe.This tangible and psychological drama about interpersonal relations and culture clash which is set in a town in the South-eastern part of New South Wales during a summer, is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, subtle character development and continuity, natural characters and the commendable acting performances by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, American actress Laura Linney, Australian actress Deborra-Lee Furness and actor Sean Rees-Wemyss and Australian actress Eva Lazzaro in their debut feature film roles. A somewhat unsettling and reflective mystery from the early 21st century which gained, among several other awards, the award for Best Screenplay and the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film at the 16th Stockholm International Film Festival in 2006.

The acting of Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney (who play a married couple) is extremely good. The actual film is O.K., but one has to ask why it did so poorly...particularly in America. The answer (I believe) is the case of the missing scene. When four men find a young ladies dead body during a fishing expedition, they just go ahead with their fishing. No communication, no debate about what would be the correct course of action--nothing.! It is true however, that some Aussie "blokes" would just carry on with their watery activity. Whatever--I am sure this--and some other typically Aussie bloke activities may have confused the global audience. Anyway this movie has a spooky atmosphere from start to finish--like there is some impending doom on the horizon. It has the power to unsettle the viewer. There are some rather ridiculous interactions between Aboriginals and whites, but generally its an effective drama / murder story.

Jindabyne is based upon Raymond Carver's short story, 'So Much Water So Close to Home', memorably filmed previously in a segment in Robert Altman's Short Cuts.A group of men go fishing for a weekend and make a grim discovery, but it is the subsequent decision that they make which will have unforeseen, personal ramifications.Let's cut to the chase. This is an actor's film. It is not about story, though it has depth. The layers exist to provide the stimulus for the actors to explore and delve into. In fact, it is so much of an actor's film that the producers decided to bring in a couple of international stars, Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, to give it the credibility Australians could obviously not provide.Our actors do however, provide solid grounding so that the leads can strut their stuff; Deborra-Lee Furness, John Howard, Leah Purcell, Chris Haywood, even Max Cullen and 'Bud' Tingwell drop in to the Snowy's to add a slice of thespian, though I had to wonder what was the point of all these actors, especially Alice Garner whom I've always found to be rather tedious.The Snowy Mountains is a beautiful part of the world, but Director Ray Lawrence (Bliss, Lantana) isn't interested in landscape, only characters. That's fair enough, but there is almost too much character exploration. We're left wondering where the actual story is. Is it Byrne's relationship with Linney or Linney's relationship with his mother? What's with the weirdo child Caylin-Calandria or the misunderstood school teacher Purcell? Sooner or later, we get some answers but the problem is, it really isn't that interesting and the rest simply serves to confuse.Beatrix Christian works a lot of good scenes into Jindabyne's script, particularly with the magnificent Byrne who deserved his AFI nomination, but there are too many threads left untied and there isn't enough story to sustain its length. It's commendable that Jindabyne strays off the path so often explored, in this case the murder, but it doesn't offer enough of an alternative. Most people have had domestic problems more vivid than this. Other than Byrne's performance, I would recommend revisiting Short Cuts or Lawrence's earlier films, which were so much better than this.