London Australia Film Festival: VAN DIEMEN'S LAND Review

As far as representations of Australia are concerned Jonathan auf der Heide's cannibal drama Van Diemen's Land is about as distanced from the cinematic clichés as possible. No dusty outback, no golden sands, no aborigines and certainly no cans of Fosters over a BBQ. Though unsurprisingly, there is some form of cooked meat on offer. VDL is concerned with plunging the audience into a very different antipodean environment - an oppressive, dense and seemingly endless mass of forested countryside that to the untrained eye isn't Australia at all, or at least not that of common screen incarnations. It's clearly a matter of perspective (and experience) but when I think of Australia in the movies, I immediately think of Nic Roeg's sublime Walkabout.

Set in what would later become known as Tasmania (the titular Van Diemen's Land) during colonial rule, this dark and foreboding film centers on a group of prison convicts who - when their preferred sea-bound route of escape is scuppered - head out into a vast wilderness for which they are ill-equipped to deal with. A motley group of assorted origins and native tongues, they initially relish the freedom, but as the landscape proves unforgiving, hunger takes hold and in desperation they turn to cannibalism. Amongst them is notorious real-life convict Alexander Pearce (Oscar Redding), a mysteriously quiet member of the escapees, who narrates the story through a doom-laden voice-over.

 It's a slowly paced and relentlessly grim film, both in tone and aesthetics. The huge forests are an endless mass of moist vegetation beneath a grey, inhospitable sky, trapping the convicts in its sheer scale. This is very much a mood piece, and there's an admirable integrity to the increasingly bleak proceedings. As a story, however, it's a bit of a slog. Though allegiances between the convicts provide some tension it's hard to really care what happens to any of them, so as axe meets flesh once more, it's a harsh but unmoving affair. The black humour that made fellow period cannibal flick Ravenous such a terrifying blast is absent; but of course it was never on the agenda here. Likewise the bleak outlook and greyed visuals of The Road are evoked, but with none of the soul or emotional resonance of that film. The cannibalism comes suddenly and the moral dilemma is dealt with in a matter of fact way, an act of necessity rather than an ethical decision. Again, fine, but there's not much else to grip or engage you, with the environment photographed in an atmospheric but often uninspired manner.

Van Diemen's Land is a fair few notches above last year's more generic Pearce-inspired cannibal flick, Dying Breed (a fantastical foray into the lives of his supposed descendents that lacked bite). It takes its time and avoids sensationalism, in many ways becoming the closest thing to a realist cannibal film thus far. Performances here are convincing too, but ultimately it's a single-minded passage into the wilderness that lacks soul.