In The Winter Dark

Production was in association with the Premium Movie Partnership for Showtime Australia with assistance and finance from the New South Wales Film and Television Office Sydney, Australia.

International Sales arranged by Southern Star Film Sales.

'I have an Ida dream. All the time. Some nights I have it so bad it has me waking up thinking I am Ida.

We dream it because we have to.

We never found a way to talk about

it in the thirty years we'd been together.'

Maurice Stubbs (Ray Barrett)

The film, In The Winter Dark, starts in the middle of a scene (in medias res). Ronnie (Miranda Otto) is sprawled out on the inside roof of a flipped vehicle. Maurice (Ray Barrrett) is walking towards the prostrate but still moving form of Ida (Brenda Blethyn). She dies as he gathers her up in his arms. It is immediately obvious that some awful drama has brought these characters to this juncture in time.

The plot then takes us back twelve months to a time when Murray (Richard Roxburgh), strolling out from the farmhouse across the paddock, is the first to notice a lurking presence of something moving in the nearby bush.

From this point we are taken to visit all the characters one by one in their respective homes. Maurice and Ida are in the kitchen talking about their dog being tied up because it has messed on the floor, conveying the idea that the dog has sensed something sinister out there.

Ronnie is sitting in her darkened lounge room near an open fire taking an acid trip. Murray too, is in his lounge, relaxing in front of an open fire, reading a book, a glass of wine in hand, listening to 'Welcome to my World' by Jim Reeves.

The plot now takes us back to Maurice and Ida's house, where the dog is barking, prompting Maurice to go outside to investigate. Glimpsing a shadowy movement behind a fence post prompts him to ask Ida for his gun, but the shadowy form has vanished by the time he is ready to shoot.

Next morning Maurice is out investigating the area around the fence post and finds a large paw print, and proceeds to makes a plaster cast of it. What follows is a series of events that builds the increasing threat of the ominous shadowy form. Maurice and Ida find a kangaroo caught in a fence with its throat torn out. Ronnie, who is in a panic, wakes Murray saying 'they're all dead', referring to her ducks. Not being a farmer Murray is at a loss to know what to do about the dead birds. He takes off into town. It's a Sunday, but he still tries to contact the Shire Council. While in town he meets up with Ida and they discuss the mysterious sightings of shadowy forms glimpsed in the bush, the slaughtered ducks, and mentions his intention to notify the Shire Council or maybe the Agriculture Department. But Ida responds by saying 'you don't want those twits over there,' and, 'this is a matter we can sort out ourselves'. As Ida is driving home to the farm she remembers in flashback her previous encountering a crashed circus truck, where people are trying to secure cages containing several large cats. The implication is that one or more large cats could have escaped their cages.

Meanwhile, back at the farm the situation forces the four characters into interacting with each other as they seek to deal with the menace. Murray and Ronnie cautiously gravitate toward each other, while Murray and Maurice also begin forming a bond while out hunting. Ronnie and Ida share a hilariously drunken evening while the guys are out hunting.

But increasingly, the stresses of their situation work to sabotage their tenuous relationships. After more sheep are killed, they are forced to meet again and the discussions escalate into mutual paranoid accusations.

Ida is in despair and heads off into the night. Ronnie, pregnant, starts to have contractions. They decide they must get her to hospital and on the way search for Ida. Maurice is driving too fast and flips the ute. He manages to exit the flipped vehicle with rifle in hand. He notices a shadowy movement in some bushes and prepares to shoot. Murray, now also out of the vehicle, sees that, what Maurice is aiming at, is in fact Ida, but is too late to stop Maurice firing. Murray now turns his attention to Ronnie, dragging her out of the vehicle. He then manages to right the vehicle and drives off into the night with Ronnie.

Finding his shovel on the ground Maurice proceeds to bury Ida's body where she fell. This brings us back full circle to the opening scene.

The film concludes with Maurice, a year later, sitting on his back veranda, lonely and reflecting on the vicissitudes of life.

For my part 'In The Winter Dark' is that it is a successful movie that observes the character's slide into the debilitating realms of paranoia and fear. The skilful amalgamation of suspense, flashbacks, music, lighting and cinematography, draws the audience into the unfolding drama. I feel though, that the character of Ronnie would have benefited from further development.

In the Winter Dark is Bogle's first big budget film and continues his theme of 'dark' movies, following on from Kadaicha (1988), a horror film about Aboriginal mysticism, and Mad Bomber in Love (1992), about a madman terrorising his flatmates.

Bogle's films fit into the Australian film making landscape in that they characteristically 'concentrate more on the spaces that separate people, on communities that stifle the spirit, and circumstances that drive lovers apart·' and the 'Australian cinema can be said to emphasise struggle and sacrifice against the land itself and against the societies that the inhabitants have created for themselves. Characters are repeatedly alienated and driven apart, condemned to loneliness, or the very least to being alone.' (Enker 1994)

This is exactly how Maurice ended up, being alone.

Bogle made In The Winter Dark in 1998, a time in which the production of feature films in Australia was '·at it's peak of 38 features [worth $166 million] in 1997/98. But Hollywood studio films, with celebrated cast and large production and promotional budgets, continue to dominate the box office as they do around the world. Australian films earned, on average, 6 per cent of the gross Australian box office during the 90's.' (Reid 1999, p9)

With this kind of domination by Hollywood, Australian producers need to find innovative ways to get their movies made. For example, Rosemary Blight (producer of In The Winter Dark) has teamed up with five other producers to form Essential Viewing. Hilton says that this would provide a 'more systematic and strategic' approach, especially to film production. [1]

Further Links

In Tim Winton's novel 'In the Winter Dark' and Bogle's film adaptation of the same name, there is something menacing the inhabitants of the valley. We don't actually see this menace and so are left to wonder what it actually was. The following links provide some possible explanations.

http://www.webace.com.au/~pwest/marca/index.html

http://www.traveldownunder.com.au/Western_Australia/South_West/Nannup_Tiger.asp

I make my confessions and wait

for redemption, or punishment.

But there's only the sunrise.'

Maurice Stubbs (Ray Barrett)

Bibliography

EnkerDebi 1994, Australia and the Australians, chapter 8, pp 210-225 in Scott Murrey (ed) Australian Cinema.

Reid Mary Anne 1999, More Long Shots: Australian cinema successes in the 90's, Sydney: Australian film Commission, Brisbane: Australian key centre for culture and media policy.

[1] Producers unite for Essential Viewing

(online) http://www.urbancinefile.com.au/home/view.asp?Article_ID=10280

Accessed 20/04/05