The Nightingale
Directed by: Jennifer Kent
Runtime: 136 minutes
Regardless of whether its form is subjective, physical or psychological, violence is always more shocking when it’s experienced in isolation. As a plot device, this idea drives much of the horror genre, along with traditional thrillers and, to a lesser extent, westerns, with their focus on austere landscapes as backdrops for moral ambiguity. In The Nightingale, Australian director Jennifer Kent’s fierce follow-up to her wildly successful debut feature film, The Babadook (2014), violence—in all its forms—is not only the primary motivation of its central characters, but also the prevailing mood: one of inescapable, unrelenting and all-pervasive dread, rich in both setting and sentiment.
Written, co-produced and directed by Kent, The Nightingale is a period thriller set in 1825 in the remote British penal colony of Van Diemen’s Land (now known as Tasmania). The story follows a young Irish convict, Clare (Aisling Franciosi), as she scrapes through a meagre existence of indentured servitude in the hopes of freedom, her fate ultimately resting with Hawkins (Sam Claflin), a cruel Army outpost officer. After Clare falls victim to harassment from soldiers and horrific sexual abuse at the hands of Hawkins himself, a late-night altercation involving Clare’s husband Aidan (Michael Sheasby) leads to Hawkins being passed over for a promotion by a visiting senior officer. Enraged at this slight to his station and privilege, Hawkins turns his formidable wrath back on Clare, as he and his drunken soldiers descend on her family home with malice and depravity on their mind. When the dust eventually settles, Clare wakes the next morning battered, bruised and violated once more, with her husband and infant child dead. With nothing left to live for, Clare is forced to seek retribution by following the offending soldiers into the heart of the Tasmanian wilderness, aided in her pursuit by a reluctant Aboriginal tracker, Billy (Baykali Ganambarr).
In Blood Meridian (1985), the narrator for American author Cormac McCarthy’s apocryphal western novel declares that: “All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery and a residue of nameless rage.” Following in the footsteps of other notable Australian or ‘Outback’ westerns—John Hillcoat’s The Proposition (2005), David Michôd’s The Rover (2014), and more recently, Warwick Thornton’s Sweet Country (2017)—this residue of anger and hatred can be found in The Nightingale, permeating the film in almost every conceivable way.
Having not seen Kent’s previous film, I had very little in the way of expectations going into The Nightingale. And, as is the case with most advance screenings, I also attempted to avoid any hint of spoilers. However, thanks to pre-release screenings at the 75th Venice International Film Festival and Adelaide Film Festival last year, various details had already been circulating for some time. Numerous articles online describe how audiences have booed and walked out of festival screenings, along with slamming the film critically for its graphic depiction of the genocide of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. Indeed, critical reception certainly remains divided at the time of writing, and there are those who have gone so far as to label Kent’s film as racist, sexist and—perhaps most bemusingly of all—misogynistic. While I acknowledge and take on those criticisms of The Nightingale in good faith, I can’t help but feel that they grossly mischaracterise the film and its messaging, making me question whether we, in fact, watched the same film at all.
There’s no denying that The Nightingale is fundamentally about violence. Kent makes this clear in her director’s statement for the Venice pre-release screening: “I wanted to tell a story about violence. In particular, the fallout of violence from a feminine perspective. To do this I’ve reached back into my own country’s history. The colonisation of Australia was a time of inherent violence; towards Aboriginal people, towards women, and towards the land itself, which was wrenched from its first inhabitants. Colonisation by nature is a brutal act. And the arrogance that drives it lives on in the modern world.” So, to say that this film is not an easy, feel-good watch is likely one of the biggest understatements you’ll read this year. Watching the film, I felt my heart race in several scenes, and in my screening, people were audibly upset and distressed. At other points in the film, I found myself brought to the brink of tears in the second and third acts. However, despite these confronting and visually arresting portrayals of violence, there’s no glorification or revelry to be found here in Kent’s film.
The first thirty minutes of The Nightingale features numerous instances of graphic sexual violence, rape, murder and infanticide. In contrast to the sensational and saturated nature of violence in the exploitation genre, Kent’s direction is cold, unwavering and laser-focused. Each act of violence—and make no mistake, there are many—is rendered as brutal, stark and uncompromising as it would be to bear witness to it in the flesh. In the scenes containing sexual violence, Kent fixes the camera steadily on each act, forcing the audience to process the events on screen in gruesome detail, only relenting for gut-wrenching POV shots from the victims, as they gaze glassy-eyed at burning fires and distant stars. When Clare finally begins to enact her revenge, Kent subverts the audience’s desire for catharsis by showing the physical and psychological toll it takes on her fragile psyche: blood and bruises, gore and filth; the spectral haunting of the dead. For Clare and Billy, there’s no victory to be found in violence, no triumph in overcoming trauma, only more pain and guilt and horror.
Outside of the obvious social and political dimensions, other aspects of The Nightingale are well-deserving of praise. Radek Ladczuk and Simon Njoo as cinematographer and editor respectively (who both worked with Kent on The Babadook), bring elements of Tasmanian Gothic to the fore, highlighting the oppressive features of the wild bush and lush rainforest, as the camera lingers and stares over each treetop sentinel, rocky promontory and winding pathway. Against these impressive and imposing vistas, the film’s boxed aspect ratio ensures that audience focus is front and centre at all times, maintaining a sense of claustrophobia and enclosure throughout. Additionally, the lead performances are simply outstanding. Despite how violence and our response to it takes primacy in the story, the true power of The Nightingale is how it renders the exploitation, subjugation and dehumanisation of humans by other humans. In this respect, Franciosi is a revelation, portraying Clare’s horrendously difficult narrative arc with vulnerability, tenacity and raw emotion. However, the real star is Ganambarr as Billy. For a 24-year old dancer from Arnhem Land, with no formal acting training, the amount of depth and nuance he brings to Billy’s character here is astonishing and entirely worthy of the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Talent at the Venice film festival.
In his review of The Proposition, esteemed film critic Roger Ebert wrestled with the familiar themes of on-screen violence and bloodshed: “Why do you want to see this movie? Perhaps you don’t. Perhaps… it will take you more than one try to face the carnage. But the director… has made a movie you cannot turn away from; it is so pitiless and uncompromising, so filled with pathos and disregarded innocence, that it is a record of those things we pray to be delivered from. The actors invest their characters with human details all the scarier because they scarcely seem human themselves.” And even at a remove of almost fifteen years, Ebert could just as easily be describing what Kent has masterfully achieved with The Nightingale.
Violence in cinema can be many things: unflinching; harrowing; gratuitous; claustrophobic; visceral; inevitable; powerful. And yet, for all of its evocative realism, the one thing The Nightingale proves is that it is not forgettable. As Kent admits: “I don’t have all the answers to the question of violence. But I feel they lie in our humanity; in the empathy we hold for ourselves and others.” For this reason alone, The Nightingale demands to be seen and to be challenged, but perhaps, most importantly, for its story to be told.
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