Review of Wake in Fright (1971) by Riff J — 27 Apr 2018

Of all the movies I've seen, there's none quite like 'Wake in Fright'. Ted Kotcheff intended to create a movie that'll make the viewer "sweat while watching it", and that's about the impression that his long lost masterpiece leaves.

I recall it as "long lost" because, and that's part of its one-of-a-kind legend, it has been forgotten for over three decades, existing only in low quality versions, before this 1971 movie got found, in rereleased in 2009.

That's why you won't hear of it before long even if well acquainted with moviemaking. For 'Wake in Fright' belongs to no era, it has no logical place on the cinematic timeline. It belongs to no genre either - since its overall look is that of a western -though it is set in the Outback-, and its existential depth resembles to the works of Antonioni ('The Passenger', 'L'Avventura') or Wenders ('Paris, Texas'), and its sun-burnt brutality has the same kind of horror than the cheap gore of Meyer ('Faster, Pussycat, Kill, Kill') and Hooper ('The Texas Chainsaw Massacre').

It's a high class film and a B kind curiosity, it's a primitive and an elaborated movie, it's a matter of circumstances perhaps- but it is, in its own right, one of the most fascinating things that I ever got to see on a movie screen.