The Furnace

Drawing you in from the first few scenes, The Furnace has you thinking on many levels. This wonderful movie educates as much as it entertains. Meticulous research grounds The Furnace in the reality of the time, providing a strength and depth to the characters and storyline which, along with the stunning panoramas of the timeless West Australian outback, makes watching it such a pleasure.

This is not a typical western movie, so if you are looking for shootings and horse chases you are in the wrong place. The western story part is just used to show the personal journey of the young Afghan cameeler Hanif and an excuse to show a part of Australian history that risks not to be told. Three highlights that make The Furnace a worth watching movie: 1 - Maleck's acting chops: this is his first gig in the international movie world and he did a wonderful job showing his internal suffering and emotions. All the actors are well casted and invested in the story. 2 - Stunning landscape: this movie needs an award for photography 3 - the representation of "fathers and son" relationship and the father-like figure. Blessed to have seen the premiere in the wonderful location of La Biennale in Venice

While this film grabs you with its excellent performances, stunning landscapes and suspenseful, action-packed storyline, the real beauty of it lies in the way the experiences of so many diverse cultures battling to survive such a harsh environment are so intelligently and empathetically drawn. It was wonderful to watch a movie that worked so well on so many levels and left me thinking about it for days. I even went back and watched it a second time so I could take it all in. I learnt something about a relatively little known part of our history and the messages contained in 'The Furnace' still resonate today.

The ingredients are rich: in the 19th century outback, aboriginals, prospectors, Chinese, cameleers (uniformly referred to as Afghans even though they come from many Middle Eastern cultures), graziers, peddlers, Moslems, Hindus, troopers, and station hands negotiate wary relations. A hardbitten prospector has stolen gold in his possession and needs to find a way to legitimise it. He falls in with a cameleer and they trek across the desert to escape the law and other criminals in pursuit.

This is an outback thriller trying to be a deep and meaningful arthouse excursion. The slow pace eventually becomes tedious and a couple of plot glitches irritate. Talented actors work hard and turn in excellent performances, but they are fighting the director.

I went to the limited screening of The Furnace at Perth to watch it from the perspective of Sikh community, but I ended up forgetting that and got immersed into the film's astonishing narrative. In my opinion there is something for everyone in this film, a weekend watcher will enjoy the quest side of it, a regular watcher will enjoy the exposition of characters without need of too many dialogues, the acting, the beautiful pace of the film and an avid watcher will end up finding a lot of subtle touches within the film like the significance of the dates and the fallen tree.

Roderick is the director and writer of the film and to me that is the most beautiful arrangement. To him I say, keep making movies. Nothing that he creates in future will be dull or lazy. This film could have gone wrong at so many points, but it's very finely put together. It clearly shows that Roderick understands the pitfalls of lazy writing and how Hollywood ruins beautiful constructed plots by giving into establishing larger than life characters or clichéd plot devices. None of that here.

A word has to be said about the editing and the soundtrack of the film. Editing is so subtle, so gentle and well done that it is pretty much a lesson in how to pace a slow burner. A plot like this usually suffers from unnecessary exposition and long monologues or the lack of them and long cinematic shots which try to create importance of the narrative by trying to convince you that this is an important and serious work of art (The Grey comes to mind) - pretty much spoon feeding the viewer. But in The Furnace, the editor balanced the film so well that in my opinion a lot of big budget Hollywood films can learn a lot from it.

And of course, the reason why I was invited by one of my mates to go to this screening. The film is historically quite accurate. Sikhs and Muslims have been part of the Australian outback longer than many could imagine. Their stories, rituals and routines are nicely interwoven into the fabric of the film. The turbans are accurate (for once). Many a times I've been pissed at the ready made look of Sikh turbans but in the Furnace, they are proper. Being a Sikh I can say, yes, that is us.

Well done. It's so fulfilling to see Australian cinema coming into its own. It's a film that me, a Sikh and an Australian, is proud of.