The brutality of Tasmania’s penal colonies is laid bare as Jennifer Kent jettisons make-believe monsters for real ones
Not every run through the jungle reveals man’s heart of darkness, but The Nightingale does not confound that particular cliche. A particularly brutal serving of Tasmanian gothic, Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to The Babadook tells its tale of violence and inhumanity in a surprisingly hushed cadence. Weaving themes of colonialism and class into the broad strokes of a won’t-stop-can’t-stop revenge potboiler, the film marks a step forward for the Australian director in terms of ambition and scope. In execution, however, the songbird hits a few false notes.
Our clock is set to 1825, when Tasmania went by the name Van Diemen’s Land, called itself a penal colony and ran as a multi-tiered slave state, and our focus is Clare, a young former convict played by Aisling Franciosi. Having served her sentence and expunged her record through indentured servitude, she is all set to begin anew with her newborn child and loving husband in tow. An Irishwoman whose sole crime might have been that she was born poor, Clare’s lowly station belies the fact that she might be the only soul in the place whose life flickers with joy. Those flickers are soon extinguished.
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