Every now and then a movie comes along to remind us that the Western isn’t dead, it’s only sleeping; The Proposition is such a movie. People have compared the film to Peckinpah, but that doesn’t seem quite right; think Cormac McCarthy in the Outback, with some Old Testament thrown in.
The film, directed by John Hillcoat (To Have and To Hold) from a screenplay by singer-songwriter Nick Cave, takes place in Australia in the late nineteenth century, at the moment when British forces came in to “civilize” the Aborigine-ruled land. The story begins with the outlaws Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his younger, slower brother Mikey (Richard Wilson), who are captured by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) in the aftermath of their murder of a rural family. Stanley is a sweating hulk of a man who offers Charlie the proposition of the film’s title: Their brother, Arthur Burns (Danny Huston), is even more notorious than they are. Charlie must find and kill Arthur by Christmas, or Mikey will hang by the neck.
From this point the story splits in two: Charlie goes into the wilderness to find his brother, a long-haired, poetry-spouting master of the machete, while Stanley stays behind with his wife Martha (Emily Watson) and gradually develops a conscience as the people of his town call for Mikey’s head.
The Proposition is a violent film; I counted eighteen deaths and several beatings between its opening and closing credits and, while much of the violence happens off-screen, a good deal of it occurs in plain sight, too. None of it, however, is gratuitous; the characters inhabit a brutal universe, and so it is necessary for the film to show brutality. Much of the brutality, of course, comes from within the characters themselves; several of them refer to Australia as a “godless” place, but they speak from a position of savage colonialism, and along with all of the white-on-white violence that the film contains there is also (like some of John Ford’s work with Indians) an interesting moral question which arises about how the settlers should treat the native Aborigines.
The brutality is spelled by moments of gentleness, most of which are provided by Watson, the loveliest actress currently working in movies. Her scenes with Winstone are terrific; the contrast between her delicate pale features and his beefy hairy form bring to mind Beauty and the Beast, and she has much the same civilizing effect on him. She delivers one monologue in particular that is startling in its fragility, and all the while Winstone gives her an able partner, always underplaying his scenes, suggesting a desire for happiness with one look more than he could in fifty lines.
The rest of the cast is outstanding as well; Noah Taylor (Shine) pops up in a small role, and David Wenham provides the face of authority as the town’s leader, dressed in impeccable tweed. Wilson is very good, ...
