Sorry, this movie sucks

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

'Wake in Fright' is a film that explores a nightmarish descent into madness in the most disturbing, terrifying, yet perfect manner possible. The very first shot of the film(an overhead wide angle shot) establishes the desolate, isolated nature of the setting. The protagonist Gary Bond, a British school teacher in Tiboonda, a remote township in the Australian Outback, is clearly trapped in the middle of nowhere and Bond is all too aware of this fact. We see him verbalise his contempt towards the educational system for tying him down with a financial bond and making him their slave. When the Christmas vacation starts, Bond with the intention of going to Sydney to visit his girlfriend, first makes his way to a nearby town named Bundanyabba which the locals call 'Yabba'. Once in Yabba, Bond comes into contact with the locals who seem over-exuberant to make his acquaintance and offer him their booze. Once the booze starts to get gulped, everything goes crazy.The reckless drinking in Yabba pretty much takes Bond on a journey into the deep dark abyss of the reckless and toxic side of masculinity. The men who Bond comes across in Yabba have nothing to do except drink and indulge in highly disturbing activities which they consider to be an exercise in bonding. This desperation to one- up each other and engage in violence and uncontrolled machismo has its roots in the fact that these people have very little to do in their lives. The loneliness and pointlessness of the life of a man in the Australian Outbacks fuel their need to play with danger and grapple with their deranged conception of 'manliness' among each other. Although the alcohol is the primary reason behind the deplorable experiences that Bond goes through in Yabba, but the director Ted Kotcheff and screenwriter Evan Jones subtly imply that Bond isn't completely faultless either. His repressed frustration for being tied down to Tiboonda actually makes him feel a bit liberated once he reaches the far more populated town of Yabba. To some extent he allows himself to be taken advantage of because of his own desire to let go. Unfortunately, his quest to liberate himself from the cage of his mundane life in Tiboonda leads him to a bigger cage of alcohol and violence in Yabba.The setting of the Australian outback instantly offers a unique visual texture to the film. The setting is essential in the thematic context too and adds to the bleakness of the tone. Ted Kotcheff and his cinematographer have to be admired for expertly capturing the Outbacks which look very post-apocalyptic(reminded me of Mad Max) and they manage to make the Outbacks look almost beautifully hideous. Tone wise Kotcheff finds the perfect balance between gritty realism and almost a Nicolas Roeg-esque transgressive surrealism. The editing goes a long way in accentuating the sequences of Bond getting drowned in booze. The frantic nature with which Kotcheff and his editor cut the film complements the frantic nature of the violence and debauchery on screen. 'Wake in Fright's grainy visual texture and its cynical view of humanity leaves a bit of an air of hopelessness in the mind of the viewer and the uninhibited nature of its dedication to capture this cynicism can be equated with the original 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. I have read that Scorsese was hugely influenced by 'Wake in Fright' and that makes me want to make another analogy. The descent into nightmarish madness that Gary Bond embarks upon in this film is somewhat similar to the colourful and idiosyncratic night that Paul Hackett goes through in Scorsese's 'After Hours'. Although 'After Hours' is a black comedy and is nowhere near as disturbing as 'Wake in Fright', but the fish out of water element in both the films is certainly comparable.John Grant is wonderful as Gary Bond. The transitions that he goes through in the course of the film are well executed and he does well to portray the inner struggles, the dilemma and heartbreak which add depth to the character. Donald Pleasence is brilliantly disturbing as the odd ball Doc Tydon. His character remains a bit of an anomaly throughout, but his presence and peculiar mannerisms help to add an unsettling element in various scenes.'Wake in Fright' is to alcoholism, what 'Requiem for a Dream' is to drug use. But having said that, it will be unfair to describe 'Wake in Fright' as nothing but a cautionary tale about reckless drinking. It is deeper than that. This film has things to say about the toxic masculinity of the 1970s in the Australian Outbacks, the reasons for which are rooted in plain boredom. It explores the perils of loneliness and throws light on how one can lose control of his/her senses when living a life of utter discontentment. 'Wake in Fright' is not for everyone, but for me, it is a dark, unsettling and surreal masterpiece.

A lot of films have tried to capture the isolation and expanse of the Australian landscape, but few have laid it bare as raw and honestly as this film does.Made in the year of my birth, it shows an older Australia, which, for the most part, is no longer visible to the naked eye in the capital cities, yet still lingers at it's core.This should be added to the national curriculum to show how far we've come, and how much we don't want to lose.At it's heart it shows the struggle between the haves and have nots, in an environment of Australian (class-less) egalitarianism.

Wake in Fright is about a part of Australia that seems to have been clean forgotten. It is a snapshot of a history and life that was swept under a rug, largely due to the colonisation of the country. Very few Australians will be familiar with the Outback aside from a vague familiarity, nor will they be aware of the threateningly machismo life portrayed in Wake in Fright, but it is a life that does exist, far beyond the fringes of the city, in the hauntingly beautiful Outback. The narrative is based on a book of the same time, about a schoolteacher from the city who finds himself in rural Australia doing teaching work for money. During his stay, he ends up in a landlocked, isolated town in the barren Australian desert colloquially called the "Yabba". The primitive way of life here initially floors the well-to-do citizen, but the town and strips back his polished city exterior. The undoing of a polite, cultured gentleman at the hands of derelict desert folk is actually one of the most disturbing aspects of this film. I kept thinking that this man (John is his name) was going to fall victim to a horrible act of violence by the group of eccentric, predominantly wasted townspeople. But instead, the film takes a different route, a far more disturbing one, and places John at the centre of the depravity. He does not fall victim to their behaviour, rather he participates in it until it ravages him almost to the point of no return. The shred of credibility and decency that John has left sees him flee the town. He has had a taste of a more simplistic, animalistic, impulsive existence, but the city life has not allowed him to fully amalgamate himself within this recklessly masculine crowd.The film is masterfully well made. The scrumptious, beautiful colours and settings of the Outback are so rich and bare that they almost become surreal. Director Ted Kotcheff isn't the first person to see the Outback as a foreboding and menacing place, but he has probably helped solidified this view in one of the most memorable ways. The performances are all excellent and you wouldn't know Donald Pleasance is a British veteran actor, because he has got the role of a grubby small town man down to a tee. In fact, all of the actors who portrayed the inhabitants of the Yabba really do seem like they were plucked off the street, they have a naturalism that compliments the film and makes it all the more frightening. Brian West, the cinematographer, deserves much credit too. The heat of the Australian summer is so palpable and raw that it feels as though you are there, in those ramshackle pubs, with sweat from your forehead dripping into your beer (which is almost never empty thanks to the "hospitable" locals). It is such a visceral, often menacing and gut-wrenching experience.I highly recommend this film. It really is incomparable to anything I've ever seen. It isn't really a commonplace thriller, but rather a drama about a way of life that has been forgotten, in favour of a more polished existence. Australia is a fascinating country because it is home to both the city and the rural, timeless outback... very contradictory realities. But sometimes when these very alternate ways of existence meet, chaos ensues. The result is intoxicating.

The stunning "Wake in Fright" is generally regarded as an important film in the annals of Australian cinema, and is a convincing and disconcerting experience, to boot. Canadian born director Ted Kotcheff ("First Blood") does a fine job at drawing us into this environment slowly but surely. It may not be too tourist-friendly, but it does expose those of us from around the world to this culture & atmosphere.Gary Bond stars as bonded schoolteacher John Grant, who teaches in a tiny berg in the Australian outback. As Christmas vacation starts, he travels to the town of Bundanyabba, intending to merely stopover there. But he comes down with gambling fever and soon loses all of his money. With not much else to do, he falls in with local hooligans - a drunken, trouble making lot, with the ever cheerful Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence) not much better than the majority of them.Strikingly photographed (by Brian West) on picturesque locations, this is a fairly chilling story (Evan Jones scripted, based on the Novel by Kenneth Cook) of one reserved urban mans' descent into moral degradation. Bond is somewhat aloof, which may not allow for all viewers to fully get involved in his plight as he struggles to get along with his new comrades.The actors all feel completely authentic, with a standout performance by a wild eyed Pleasence. Also excellent are Chips Rafferty as amiable cop Jock Crawford, Sylvia Kay as the promiscuous Janette Hynes, recognizable character actor Jack Thompson as the swaggering Dick, John Meillon as bartender Charlie, and Al Thomas as the solicitous Tim Hynes.Although deliberately paced, "Wake in Fright" manages to be consistently uneasy, and it has a very memorable sequence that depicts the slaughter of kangaroos, which should be hard to stomach for some in the audience.Absolutely essential viewing for new and old aficionados of the "Ozploitation" genre.Eight out of 10.