>>REVIEW
THE PROPOSITION
STARRING Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson and Danny Huston
DIRECTED BY John Hillcoat
Friday, June 23
Uptown Screen
It’s 1880 in Australia. Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) tells his recently captured prisoner, Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), that he will let him and his younger brother Mike (Richard Wilson), go free if Charlie agrees to go into the hills and kill their older brother, Arthur (Danny Huston). Arthur is wanted for the rape and murder of a young pregnant woman, and Stanley knows that while capturing two out of three ain’t bad, it isn’t retribution – unless Charlie kills Arthur, justice will not be served. He has nine days to find and kill Arthur. If he fails, or tries to escape, Stanley will publicly hang Mike and then hunt down and kill Arthur and Charlie himself.
The Proposition was written by goth-country balladeer Nick Cave and is every bit as poetic as the singer’s most potent songs. This is a brutally violent, languid exercise in truth and redemption that sidesteps the heavy-handed clichés regularly seen in westerns, choosing instead to exist in that quiet place that breathes in between the action. This is a movie about very bad men who do very bad things without reservation or moral self-actualization. They are monsters, but even monsters have souls and though we may not want to see inside the heart of a killer, The Proposition never shies away from showing us that beautiful poetry, unconditional love for family and subtle wisdom inhabit all human creatures regardless of how they choose to live their lives.
Director John Hillcoat creates a place in Australia’s Outback that resembles hell. He uses a barren landscape as his palette, populating it so sparsely that we get the feeling that Charlie’s quest not only presents a moral dilemma, but a physical one as well. These challenges create a catharsis that is both beautiful and painful to watch.
Every actor in The Proposition is pitch perfect. Huston, in particular, gives a fierce, focused turn to a character that in different hands could easily be played as "psychotic," but he infuses such stillness and intelligent reflection to his work that we forget that he is a rapist of women and a killer of men. This stunning performance is the one to beat this year and I hope the Academy remembers it when they are called upon to vote.
The Proposition is not a movie for everyone – it is an art-house western that contains unflinching violence with lyrical prose and makes no excuses for either. The violence is not glorified, nor is the poetry solipsistic. This is a challenging, brave and beautiful film that stayed with me long after the credits rolled. |
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