Culture

Daniel Nettheim’s The Hunter is a beautiful and hypnotic piece of visual art weaving the dreamscape terrain of the Tasmanian bush and the powerful presence of Willem Dafoe into a delectably tense thriller that delivers action, suspense and drama in equal parts. Dafoe plays Martin, a professional killer, inscrutable and set in his ways of warm baths, loud opera and deftly killing things. He is hired by the mysterious biotech company, Red Leaf, to hunt down the last remaining Tasmanian Tiger and to bring back genetic samples for a never quite defined, but obviously sinister, pharmaceutical patent. The company and its motives are never fully revealed but it doesn’t matter to Martin, who takes on his new assignment as just another job … at first.

Once Martin arrives in Tasmania he is directed to his accommodation, a remote farmhouse, by ominous local Jack Mindy, played by the under-utilised Sam Neill. The Hunter shifts into familiar territory here with an emotional appeal engaged by the endearing family whom Martin boards with. Frances O’Connor plays the newly widowed housewife whose husband recently disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Dosed and numbed by grief and pills she is primed for rescuing by the new houseguest, as well as her children, Sass and Bike, played magically by Morgana Davies and Finn Woodlock.

As Martin carries on with his mission, setting traps in the bush and searching for signs of the tiger, the film shines brightest. Cinematographer Robert Humphrey showcases the two real stars of the movie, the dazzling beauty of Tasmania itself and the penetrating countenance of Dafoe in perfect contrast and haunting silence. The plot thickens as Dafoe learns that he wasn’t the only hunter sent by Red Leaf and quickly finds himself both predator and prey.

- Andrew Oliver