The Proposition


Safe to say this movie will not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is a beautiful, lyrical meditation on the clash between human savagery and civil society.

It takes place in the Australian Outback in the Old West era. A lawman trying to "civilize" a frontier town offers a criminal the chance to save his mentally-challenged younger brother from the gallows (on charge of rape) in return for killing his sociopathic older brother (leader of the gang.)

It all goes swimmingly, as you can imagine.

The story, and the role of violence in the story, draws from whole swaths of Western culture, from the Bible (lots of Cain and Abel and Crucifixion material) to Joseph Conrad.

The performances are brilliant and understated. No long rants about the nature of evil and no improbable bits of cleverness. Just very genuine depictions of what people in this situation would probably really be like.

And a frank, unflinching, matter-of-fact depiction of really VERY horrible violence. I've never seen violent material presented so respectfully of the subject. It's isn't overly lurid, like a George Romero zombie-fest, nor does it shy from any detail of the subject. Anyone who's been a victim of violence knows that the details are important. What appears to be a minor wound onscreen can, in fact, be a lifelong debilitation.

The filming style is very reminicent of Peter Weir's best work and the grittiness makes Leone and Peckinpah look like Gary Cooper and John Ford.

Six stars. Jason Bob says, really, check it out.