Jindabyne

Jindabyne Review

"Jindabyne" (pronounced JIN-da-bine) is a 2006 Australian film about a crisis in the country town of the same name in New South Wales. Four guys on a fishing trip in the deep wilderness discover a body of a young woman in a creek, a woman who's part aboriginal; they unwisely decide to finish their fishing escapades before reporting the body 2 days later. When the press gets ahold of the story the men are publicly castigated for their clueless irresponsibility; their actions are also interpreted as racist by the local native population and the girl's family. Claire (Laura Linney), the wife of one of the men, Stewart (Gabriel Byrne), can't believe they didn't immediately report the body and becomes very suspicious of the incident, as well as alienated from her husband. Meanwhile the killer is on the loose.

"Jindabyne" combines elements of "Deliverance" (1972) and "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (1975). The similarities with the former are obvious, while it shares the latter's haunting ambiance and overall mysteriousness of the Australian wilderness (albeit Eastern Australia rather than Western).

While "Jindabyne" isn't the most captivating piece of celluloid and leaves some aspects unresolved, it did hold my attention and the story provokes numerous insights and questions. For instance, the killer is revealed in the opening shot. This isn't someone frothing at the mouth with evil, but rather an ordinary-looking electrician. One important scene late in the film shows him swatting a bee and we get the impression that he's willing to kill a human being with the exact same indifference. Why's this important? There are ordinary-looking people out there who have no qualms about snuffing out a person's life for their own selfish purposes if they think they can get away with it, just as there are people who would steal, molest or falsely testify without a second thought (take note of the scene where a boy almost gets molested at a secluded beach). We shouldn't assume everyone's like us. There are evil people out there who prey on others; we should be conscious of this and warn our youth. If the aboriginal girl had truly realized this she wouldn't have allowed herself to fall into the killer's grasp.

[Minor SPOILERS follow as I attempt to intrepret the film]

As I understand it, the four men found the body sometime late in the afternoon on Friday and didn't report it immediately because there was no cell phone reception so far back in the sticks. They waited until Sunday to make the call. In the meantime they tied the body to a tree to keep it from being swept downstream and went about their fishing business. This provokes numerous questions: I realize one of them sprained his ankle but why didn't they send one or two back immediately to report the body? Was it too late? Were they concerned about a killer on the loose in the area? How were they able to block out the presence of the dead body to enjoy their fishing trip? If it was a white teenager would they have reacted in the same callous manner?

The story gives evidence that they were fishoholics excited about their adventure and simply weren't prepared to handle the burden and responsibility of a mysterious dead body. Hence, they temporarily blocked out the corpse and continued their endeavors. Later, in the big fight scene with Claire, Stewart admits with all the rage that only guilt can cook up, that it did FEEL GOOD to be fishing for awhile, free from the shackles of his every-day mundane existence in "civilization." But how could it? Maybe because many men have the ability to BE IN THE MOMENT, to focus on their main goal and, basically, forget, for a while, the circumstances surrounding them.

This, I think, director Ray Lawrence portrays effectively in the fishing scene. The day is glorious, the landscape is beautiful and the music is pleasant. The scene is a soothing interlude between moments of tension; it's like momentary heaven on earth. So much so, I found myself smiling along with Stewart and the other guys. And then they remembered the dead body.

Many say the movie is about making a stupid decision and the requisite consequences, as well as repentance, forgivenness and compassion. True, but the movie is also about the differences between the way man and woman view and deal with reality. I doubt most women would be able to ignore the presence of a corpse enough to enjoy a fishing holiday in the wilderness, which explains why Claire becomes so appalled at the guys' actions. No wonder she looks at her husband as if she doesn't even really know him; their marriage was already strained and this understandably rips it apart (to say nothing of the weirdo mother-in-law -- she'd give anyone the heebie-jeebies!).

Another scene that depicts this difference is when Stewart comes home from the fishing trip in the middle of the night. Feeling guilty and confused, he needs to make love to Claire, to touch her and give her pleasure in order to regain a bit of his humanity. Talking about it is not an option for him, there are simply no words. It's evidently a way for Stewart to "skip" the whole event, to deny his own responsablity, to pretend he's not concerned by it.

Yet, I think the film is about scapegoating more than anything. A beautiful young girl is dead and it's almost impossible to discern who did it, so the community's collective pain is hurled at the four doofuses who trivialized her in death in order to preserve their paradisical holiday. Also, the film obviously compares the men's cavalier disregard with the heartless indifference of the killer himself. Which isn't to say they're anywhere close to being as bad as the murderer, not at all, but they do share one of the key traits that enables him to do what he does.

As far as implications of the bee sting go, there are many: (1) It represents the girl taking some small revenge now that she was one with nature (according to the aborigines). (2) It showed nature beginning to assert its dominance over this man who professes a psychological link of some kind with artificial power (electricity), which he also represents, and the way he uses nature to abet his crimes (i.e. hiding in the rocks and disposing of his victims in the stream). (3) It simply shows that his cycle of predation and murder is an eroding one, in that the longer he keeps doing it the more things will happen that are beyond his control, and will eventually lead to his discovery. (4) It signifies how a murderer can kill a person with no remorse or anything, just like killing an insect. And (5) It shows how the killer's still alive since he can feel and react to the bee whereas the girl's dead and gone as her body is unable to feel or react to the insects transgressing her corpse (as depicted in an earlier scene).

The only significant criticism I can voice concerns the corpse of the girl; her body almost looks sexy, which is never the case in real life and even more so in this particular case since the body's been dead for awhile and lying in a creek under the hot sun most of a day. My wife works as a general manager at a large burial park and therefore sees bodies all the time, young and old. Corpses are gross and smelly. Death is never sexy.

FINAL SAY: Maybe the film's not worthy of such a long write-up since it's not the most engrossing flick out there, but I wanted to illustrate how provocative "Jindabyne" is. There's a lot to this film and there's much more I'd like to address but this critique is overkill as it is. Suffice to say, this is a film for thinking people and those who prefer arty brooding flicks. If you appreciated the mysterious vibe of "Picnic at Hanging Rock" you'll probably like this one. I think it's better.

The film was shot in and around Jindabyne, which is a couple hours drive south of Canberra by the Snowy Mountains; needless to say, the locations are a highlight.

The runtime is 123 minutes. Stewart Kane, an Irishman living in the Australian town of Jindabyne, is on a fishing trip in isolated hill country with three other men when they discover the body of a murdered girl in the river. Rather than return to the town immediately, they continue fishing and report their gruesome find days later. Stewart's wife Claire is the last to find out. Deeply disturbed by her husband's action, her faith in her relationship with Stewart is shaken to the core. She wants to understand and tries to make things right. In her determination to help the victim's family Claire sets herself not only against her own family and friends but also those of the dead girl. Her marriage is taken to the brink and her peaceful life with Stewart and their young son hangs in the balance. The story of a murder and a marriage. A powerful and original film about the things that haunt us.