I don't know about you, but after watching Not Quite Hollywood at last year's Midnight Madness I began to track down and watch as many of the films featured in Mark Hartley's kinetic documentary. Among the films I found were Stone, Patrick and Long Weekend, but the list could go on and on. Last week I was given the opportunity to watch another film that was featured in NQH: Wake In Fright. Wake In Fright has developed a reputation as Australia's "great lost film," as its unavailability on video or DVD and its absence from television screens has meant that it has been seen little since its release. However, that will all change at this year's Dialogues: Talking With Pictures programme at the festival.

Wake In Fright is one of the films that kick-started the Australian film industry. The film was also Australia's official entry into the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.

The history of the print of the film itself is a great story. Here is a quote from Ted Kotcheff on the film: “For years, the negative of Wake in Fright (a.k.a. Outback) was thought to be lost forever. The search for it was like a film – it went on for two years all over the world and its final discovery in a Pittsburgh warehouse in boxes marked “For Destruction” one week before its incineration sounds like dubious film writing. Its loss would have been a knife in my heart, for Wake in Fright and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz are the two films of mine that I am most proud of."

Wake In Fright begins with a great 360 degree shot. It is almost as if the camera is drinking in Australia's great landscape. We then meet John Grant, a school teacher getting ready for Christmas leave with one goal in mind: to return to Sydney (a.k.a. civilization) and reunite with his girlfriend. John's journey begins simple enough by boarding a train , but his trip begins to spiral out of control once he lands in Bundanyabba (known as “The Yabba”). A cab driver sums up The Yabba thusly: "Nobody worries about who you are or where you came from." Every decision John makes in an attempt to flee the Outback draws him further into it.



While watching Wake In Fright some other works came to mind, most notably Peckinpah's Straw Dogs and Hunter S. Thompson's seminal novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Coincidentally, all three works were released in 1971. In '71 the Vietnam war was still raging, brutal images of the war being broadcast into living rooms on a nightly basis. Richard Nixon's presidency was in full swing. I cannot speak of that generation but there are enough similarities to my generation that would lead me to believe that the hopelessness that comes with a dubious war as well as a quest to explain the brutal nature of man would become a unifying theme among the great artists of that era. Wake In Fright is a master work study of desolation, desperation and loneliness.

One final note. Ted Kotcheff was born in Toronto in 1931 and will be at the screenings to introduce the glorious, restored 35mm print of Wake In Fright. I strongly urge those of you reading this post to see this great lost gem of Australian cinema.