The western goes bush

Revenge, redemption, and the unforgiving nature of life on the frontier; the familiar tropes of the western film genre are some of the most basic, but also the most resonant elements of cinematic story-telling.

Traditionally set in the American mid-west during the late 19th century, and often involving such elements as isolated towns at the edge of civilization, hardy pioneers, fierce natives and gun-slinging cowboys, westerns had their heyday from the 1930s to the 1960s in the myth-making films of American directors such as John Ford, John Sturges and Howard Hawks, and later the grittier ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ of Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci and Giulio Questi.

Save for some isolated exceptions – including Kevin Costner’s Dances With Wolves (1990), Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (1992) and Tommy Lee Jones’ The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) – western films have not been popular in recent years. But despite the genre’s gradual fade from grace, it seems the western is far from dead, even in Australia.

Until recently there were only a handful of Australian films that could truly claim the title of westerns, including Rolf de Heer’s The Tracker (2002) and Gregor Jordan’s Ned Kelly (2003). Then, in 2005, John Hillcoat’s bloody and remarkable The Proposition exploded onto Australian screens, prompting Variety to welcome it as ‘the first genuine, blood-and-thunder Aussie Western’.

Now a new film joins the exclusive company of these genuine Australian westerns: Patrick Hughes’s vividly realized debut feature, Red Hill.

The story of an earnest young policeman transferred to a small town in Victoria’s High Country and seeking redemption for past sins, only to find himself caught up in a bloody battle for vengeance when a convicted killer (Tom E. Lewis, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith) breaks out of the local prison, Red Hill is a taut, tense, and unpredictable drama shot around the East Gippsland town of Omeo.

Talking to Arts Hub on the afternoon of the film’s Queensland premiere at the Brisbane International Film Festival, writer/director Patrick Hughes said Red Hill was inspired by the strong moral code of the western, a genre he had long admired.

“We like to pitch this as a neo-western or an outlaw thriller, but essentially it’s Die Hard in the High Country; it’s Training Day in Omeo. What I was originally drawn to was the moral code of the western, and I wanted to explore that,” Hughes told Arts Hub.

In the tradition of the revisionist western, the hero of Red Hill, police constable Shane (a familiar name to western fans) Cooper is a flawed and often frightened young man rather than a tough and grizzled gunfighter.

“For me, the role of Shane was interesting – the cliché would have been that he was the top gunslinger from Melbourne city who had all the badges and medals and had shot a whole bunch of people,” Hughes explained. “What was really interesting was his sense of justice; at what point would he cross the line and have blood on his hands?”

Ryan Kwanten, the former Home and Away star now best known for his role as the Southern bad boy in Alan Ball’s vampire series True Blood, said it was the opportunity to play the character of Cooper that first attracted him to the project.

“I’ve always been attracted to stories that take characters to the absolute extremes and I was really interested in the character of Cooper. Firstly, it was a really easy read, and that was the first thing that surprised me; for a first-time filmmaker the lack of exposition that was in the script – there was no extra fat on the bone, it was just pure meat – was [surprising]. That was what I first enjoyed,” Kwanten said.

“But outside of that, it was tapping into a character that was getting poked, prodded, punched, knocked down time and time again, and that was really appealing to me. Rather than being this unstoppable force, he was supposed to stand up and become the hero, rather than starting out as the hero.”

The sparseness of the story is another element of Red Hill that deliberately echoes earlier westerns, according to Hughes.

“The western genre is often a very lean, sparse style of storytelling, and I wanted to try and replicate that aesthetically in the tone [of the film] and also the story itself,” he said.

Another aspect of the film that echoes older genre traditions is the importance of the landscape, which is so strong as to be virtually another character in Red Hill. Thanks to the striking cinematography of Tim Hudson, the rugged terrain of the High Country, its dramatic vistas and stark cliffs, has rarely looked more beautiful or more threatening.

“The germ of the film came from the actual landscape itself,” Hughes said. “I was fortunate enough to do some brumby chasing up there when I was younger, and I remember riding back through this small country town called Omeo, and as I was riding down main street I couldn’t help but feel I was in this living, breathing western.

“And then there was this sort of inherent tragedy to this town, because Omeo used to have a population of 40,000 people, and there’s only 120 people who now actually live in that town. It’s like a boomtown that’s gone bust, and when you watch all these classic westerns they’re all about these thriving towns and I really like that notion of ‘what’s happened to that town 100 years later?’.

“Essentially what Red Hill is about is that it’s a town that’s lost its way, that’s looking for survival in a modern world.”

Given that recent Australian films have often struggled to connect with audiences, one can only hope that the modern world responds positively to this remarkable, visceral, revisionist western.

Red Hill opens nationally on Thursday November 25.

Written, directed and edited by Patrick Hughes

Executive Producers: Rob Galluzzo, Greg Mclean & Craig McMahon

Original Music: Dmitri Golovko

Cinematography: Tim Hudson

Stars Ryan Kwanten, Steve Bisley, Tommy Lewis & Claire van der Boom