Both Clare and Billy have been deeply wronged by colonialists - her as a convict and woman, him as a Palawa. Having spent over five years researching the frontier wars, Kent made The Nightingale in collaboration with Palawa elders, with the story of Clare and Billy serving as Australia-specific synecdoche for the general oppression and violence of British colonialism. And so, determined to exact revenge, she sets off in pursuit of the trio, hiring "Billy" Mangana (an exceptional debut from dancer Baykali Ganambarr), a Palawa tracker who hates whites as much as Clare hates Hawkins. However, before they leave, Hawkins and Ruse rape Clare and brutalise Aidan and the baby. Infuriated, Hawkins orders Ruse and Jago to accompany him on foot through the treacherous bush to Launceston, where he intends to make an in-person appeal for promotion to army brass. Happening in front of a visiting superior officer who's evaluating Hawkins for promotion, the officer tells Hawkins he won't be recommending him. Ruse ( Damon Herriman), and the naïve Pvt. The following night, Aidan drinks too much and gets into a brawl with Hawkins, the sadistic Sgt. However, Hawkins, who calls her his Nightingale on account of her beautiful singing voice, responds by raping her, and not for the first time. Convicted of petty theft in Ireland over seven years prior, Clare has served her sentence and is waiting for Hawkins to sign her long overdue letter of recommendation, which would render her and Aidan free citizens. In an isolated colony, Clare Carroll (a star-making turn from Aisling Franciosi) and her husband Aidan ( Michael Sheasby) are Irish convicts with an infant daughter, indentured to garrison commander Lt. A British penal colony, the island is in the midst of the Black War, with the British army attempting to eradicate the indigenous Palawa population. Brutally violent (but never gratuitously so), extremely unpleasant, and downright nihilistic at times, it's not going to pack them in at the multiplex, but this is an important, relevant, and mature study of mans' innate capacity for cruelty. Much as Kent's debut, the exceptional Бабадук (2014), was a horror in name only, its genre serving as a means to a thematic end, so too with The Nightingale. However, as it progresses, it gradually reveals itself as less concerned with hitting genre beats than engaging with issues such as racism, misogyny, the fine line between barbarism and civilisation, and the cathartic potential of revenge (or possible lack thereof). Written and directed by Jennifer Kent, on the surface, The Nightingale is very much a genre picture - a rape/revenge drama set in a pseudo-western milieu.
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