What Nick Cave calls “the best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence” languished in obscurity following its premiere at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival (where both it and Walkabout screened in competition) before being restored and presented again at Cannes in 2009 by Martin Scorsese as “a deeply – and I mean deeply – unsettling and disturbing movie”. Arrogant schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) has been forced to take a position in a remote township. Returning to Sydney for Christmas, he must overnight in a mining town known as ‘the Yabba’. The bonhomie of the locals, particularly the eccentric ‘Doc’ Tydon (Donald Pleasance), has the effect of brutalising Grant, stripping away his urbane façade and revealing a drunken, self-destructive thug.

Contains scenes of animal cruelty that some viewers may find upsetting.

Notes by Kevin Coyne.

Screening as part of the Australian Dreams season.