The Flood

I've never done this before, but as we know there's a first time for everything. At time of writing this review, The Flood, according to IMDB has a rating of 4.5, which I can completely understand, though I personally think it's a little high. Bear with me here. There are 47 user reviews, about 40 of which have scores of 9 or 10. Make sense statistically? No, I don't think so either. I've always been a sceptic, but maybe there is some truth to that IMDB urban legend about cast and crew of these sort of C grade movies, all collectively contributing powder puff reviews complete with outstanding numerical ratings in a crass effort to increase their film's audience.

Because Victoria Wharfe McIntyre's film, while visually magnificent, is the cinema equivalent of a rather rancid piece of mutton dressed up as succulent lamb. I weep for the contributors on this forum who actually believe this trippy little wannabe Tarantino downunder piece, has some sort of historical pretensions. No the Australian government wasn't in any conspiracy with Catholic missions to provide indigenous slave labour on farms and stations, as the film alleges in its opening scrolled notes. And no, post World War 2 rural Australian townspeople didn't engage in wholesale rapings and killings of indigenous people at the drop of a slouch hat. The town posse sequence for instance! I mean the film even confuses itself over this. First it states that there was this officially - sanctioned slave labour process, but then suggests that the beneficiaries of the said labour, just shot them up, whenever the yen took them.

And then we come to the technical aspects of The Flood. The acting is just plain ordinary. The characterisations almost uniformly cardboard, especially those of the villainous whites. About the only stereotypical image we weren't dished up, was some guy with a waxed moustache tying an Aboriginal girl in a white dress to a set of railway tracks. We got just about everything else including an incredibly intrusive and anachronistic soundtrack, choppy editing and repetition of certain scenes, dream sequences which only added to the main narrative's overall incoherence and John Woo style slow motion action scenes which added nothing to the sequences, apart from reminding us continually that McIntyre loves to ape and pay homage to far better directors. She even bizarrely finds the time in this overlong film to throw in a flashback/dream Mad Max reference. Make of it what you will.

I have no issue with writer/directors such as McIntyre wanting to make films about the injustices that First Nations people have suffered. But let's try and start with a semi - realistic storyline, such as that offered by The (far better) Nightingale. The Flood is a contradictory jumble of themes, ideas and characters that undermines any valuable points that McIntyre was possibly trying to make about colonialism and racial hatred. Best avoided.

Granted, I only glanced at the movie's cover before sitting down to watching it, so I didn't really know what I was in for, as I hadn't heard about the movie prior to watching it, nor did I read the synopsis. I thought it to be a Western of sorts.

Turns out that this wasn't a Western at all. Instead I was sitting down to watch an Australian historical drama. And now I am not overly traversed within the Australian history, so this was all new territory for me. And from what the movie delivered to me in terms of entertainment and enjoyment value, I suppose you have to have been more familiar with the events of Australian history and culture to appreciate the movie fully.

Sure, "The Flood" was watchable, but it was hardly a captivating or overly impressive movie for me. Again, perhaps because I am not familiar with the Australian history. So I can't relate to the events in the movie's storyline, nor did I stand any chance of knowing what to be true or based on true events, and what was fictional make-belief.

The acting in the movie was good, although I felt that the storyline and the slow pacing of the movie was somehow holding back the performers in delivering everything that they could and should.

My rating of "The Flood" settles on a generous four out of ten stars. This movie wasn't really aimed at me as its target audience, and I wasn't really getting swept away, nor could I fully sink myself into the storyline and the events that transpired in the story. But I am sure that writer and director Victoria Wharfe McIntyre managed to dish out a movie that will have a greater appeal to people Down Under.

This could have been so much better. The story was quite good, but could have been told in half the time. The rest of the movie was padded out with pointless fantasy/dream sequences which added nothing at all to the story. It was also interspersed with random pop-type songs, totally out of keeping with the on-screen action or the time period setting. The action scenes and violence were over-the-top and unbelievable to the point where I thought the Director was trying to be Australia's answer to Tarantino!

This is no Red Hill. Actually at times I'm not sure if it's trying to be Bran Nue Day or The Propositions, however if you are looking for a modern film that explores the suffrage of first nations people with a touch of tradition. This is one amongst a small list of films available to watch. The acting and cinematography is exceptional, however the editing, direction and all round Composition of the film is horrific. The films major lack is that it has no strong protagonist. It's just a series of characters going through a series of events.

It doesn't give the audience a chance to become attached to any of the characters journeys. It drops in and out of artistic intention without provocation and loses it's audience in the typical Australian Contemporary Cinema style, where experimentation is used to give subtext overshadowing the audience's desire for understanding and wastes valuable time exploring themes that need no further explanation.

This film is irritating in that it could be so much better had it been given to an experienced post production team focused on just telling the story and not trying to be clever.

This is not a Saturday night movie, but a Sunday afternoon time killer.

Don't get me wrong, I am so happy movies like this are being made in Australia, and I did enjoy watching this one. It has so many amazing scenes, but the entire film as a whole leaves me feeling patronised. It is a shame and it angers me that this film will disappear into the SBS B grade Australian films catalogue that only get played on television once every 10 years.

In all honesty this is exactly the kind of film that gets made with government funding hoping to cater to an imaginary demographic that does not exist. It's a Black Exploitation film that hides behind being a Biographical piece in order to present neo feminist perspectives.

An Australian poor mans version of Django Unchained. But I feel that the director is a wanna be Wes Andersen trying to make a film to impress Peter weir.

However if you want the blatant truth. The fundamental reason why this film will suck to many who watch it, is simple because the entire budget was spent on the filming leaving very little funding to post production and vast amount of attention needed to make this film what it could have potentially been.

This is not a bad film it just jumps around allot and you have to be in the right mood to enjoy it through perseverance.

Bitter Springs will probably give you a closer connection to Aboriginal victimisation if that is what your in the mood for.

All done and said, this is an exceptional first film from a production team and cast that show allot of promise.

There was a story worth telling in this, but it got lost in confusion and cliche's.