Australian drama film directed by John Hillcoat (Ghosts of the Civil Dead) with a music by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (Wings of Desire). Jack (Tchéky Karyo, Nikita) is a French adventurer who deals an informal video business on the Sepik River, in the north of Papua New Guinea. His wife Rose (Anni Finsterer, Strange Fits of Passion) has recently died in an accident.
Traveling in Melbourne, Jack meets Kate (Rachel Griffiths, Muriel's Wedding), a young novelist launching her new book, a romance taking place in France where she never went. They fall in love, and after a brief gateway in Paris, Jack brings Kate to the Sepik, where she is welcomed by the caretakers James (Larry Lavai, Dschungelkind) and Gabby (Ura Eri).
Will Kate manage to cope with her new living condition? Will their romance survive overseas? Will they avoid the decay of fallen tropical adventurers? Will she find there the inspiration for her new novel? Will she make Jack forget the overwhelming memory of Rose? Will she manage to let him escape from the ghosts which seem to obsess him? Shall Jack manage to distance from his Videodrome-like fascination for screens? And what exactly did happen to Rose two years ago?
Who can help Kate gather the puzzle of the situation? There are the old Noah (John Parinjo), who reassures tourists they won't be eaten... anymore; the young Luther (Robert Kunsa), former servant of Jack but with a rascal reputation; Sal (Steve Jacobs, Sky Trackers) and Stevie (David Field, Broken Highway), two Jack's pals but perhaps crooked.
The film, one of the few fiction movies set and actually shot in Papua New Guinea (in Angoram, Tambanum and Wewak in the Sepik area), with fine pictures and a French movie-like slowness, gets a good balance between local and Western actors, and maintains a right thrill through Kate's quest for truth. In front of social issues like raskolism, endemic violence and alcoholism, will Kate manage to get safe through her story?
