That was an excellent one.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's been a while since I've seen this movie, but it deserves a review for highlighting all that's wrong with the Australian film industry. To make a movie in Australia, you all but have to obtain government film funding, which is decided by bureaucrats that prove the old adage: those that can, do, those that can't become film bureaucrats. These depressed, politically correct, failed filmmakers, a product of government-backed film schools that churn out thousands of like-minded confrères, favour social realism and fund topics such as drug addiction, domestic violence, racial intolerance and rural horror. Hence the litany of depressing, ugly portraits of Australia, which are to tourism what cyanide is to fine dining.Jindabyne is typically ponderous and depressing. It highlights feminist and indigenous themes, a prerequisite for funding it seems, culminating in ludicrously irrelevant scenes of traditional Aboriginal mourning. Saddest of all, this was hailed at the time as a pinnacle of Australian cinema, the critics as delusional as the government-suckled film industry. The public voted with its box office dollars, and largely avoided this movie, along with most of the dreary drivel produced in the last, lost decade of Australian filmmaking.So, I'd avoid this movie and see Robert Altman's Short Cuts. Not even an original plot line, Jindabyne is based on a Raymond Carver short story, which Short Cuts handles infinitely better.

Forget that this film has too many metaphors and undeveloped subplots. Yes, it's flawed. But it effectively conveys the feeling of guilt and human powerlessness to the viewer. Perhaps the biggest flaw in the movie lies in the two children's relationship (Tom and Caylin-Calandria). It's muddy and a bit far-fetched. But the rest of the film works brilliantly and, of course, some great acting by Byrne and Linney don't hurt the cause. The cinematography is also top-notch. That so much is unresolved is also the point of the film - life doesn't give us the answers and we have to face the consequences of our actions.

"Jindabyne" (pronounced JIN-da-bine) is a 2006 film about a crisis in an Australian town. Four guys on a fishing trip in the wilderness discover a body of a young woman in a creek, a woman who's part aboriginal; they decide to finish their activities before reporting the body 2 days later. When the press gets ahold of the story the men are criticized for their irresponsibility; their actions are also interpreted as racist by the local native population. 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 suspicious of the incident. 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 which shows that there are ordinary-looking people out there who have no qualms about snuffing out a person's life for their own selfish purposes, just as there are people who would steal, molest or falsely testify without a second thought. We shouldn't assume everyone's like us. There are evil people out there who prey on others. If the aboriginal girl had realized this she wouldn't have allowed herself to fall into the killer's grasp.The story gives evidence that the men 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 focus on the moment and, basically, forget, for a while, the circumstances surrounding them.This, I think, director Ray Lawrence portrays effectively in the fishing scene. The scene is a soothing interlude between moments of tension; it's like momentary heaven on earth. 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, forgiveness 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, which explains why Claire becomes appalled at the incident. No wonder she looks at her husband as if she doesn't know him; their marriage was already strained and this 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 regain a bit of his humanity. Talking about it is not an option, there are simply no words. It's evidently a way for Stewart to "skip" the whole event, to pretend he's not concerned by it.Yet, I think the film is about scapegoating more than anything. A young girl is dead and it's next to impossible to discern who did it, so the community's collective pain is hurled at the four who trivialized her death in order to preserve their 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 as bad as the murderer, not at all, but they do share one of the traits that enables him to do what he does.Theories on the implications of the bee sting: (1) It represents the girl taking some small revenge now that she was one with nature. (2) It showed nature beginning to assert its dominance over this man who professes a psychological link with artificial power, 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 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 case since the body's been dead for awhile and lying in a creek under the hot sun. My wife works at a burial park and sees bodies all the time, young and old. Corpses are gross and smelly. Death is never sexy.

I really wanted to like this film...but ultimately found it a slow, self important, tedious, offensive mess. It's as though the producers tried to tick every PC box to get film Australia funding. (Lesbians, Aboriginals, all the white men are evil) PAHH-LEEEZE. Not a single likable or sympathetic character in the whole sorry charade. I gave up caring for anyone in the film and started hoping the 'serial killer' would start picking them off.. just to relieve the tedium.What could have been an interesting film ( good premise, great locations, strong cast) simply get's mired in it's own bloated sense of self importance.