This film features beautiful cinematography, an exotic locale, and an outstanding cast, including John Hurt, Danny Huston, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, David Wenham, and Ray Winstone. Its grim depiction of the Australian frontier in the 1880's features a character who might best be described as Manichaean: Evil, incarnate, and among us.
Various precedents for this premise come to mind. When, in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, society has no answer for unbridled evil, The Stone Guest intervenes and drags the villain down to Hell. In Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, a post-Enlightenment world has no supernatural foil for the villain, who marauds unopposed by any civil authority. At the outset of The Proposition we understand that Arthur Burns (Huston) and those in his thrall, are capable of the most outrageous atrocities and care nothing about human society. Who in this world can withstand such a creature? We are shown at every turn how Burns and his clan seem to be as natural to this harsh, unforgiving environment as desert scorpions. In contrast to their very nature are Martha Stanley (Watson) and Eden Fletcher (Wenham), who choose to pretend their rose bushes and fine saddle horses are no more incongruous here than if they were back in England. It is their unexamined assumption that British justice can also be transplanted to the Outback that places Captain Stanley Martha's devoted husband and Fletcher's dutiful enforcer at the center of this story.
The Proposition is really the project of Nick Cave, a songwriter who created both its screenplay and its musical score. Both are adequate for the telling of this engaging story, but what of its archetypal monster? The Judge in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, seems to be more than a man and more like a force of nature. Whether man or phenomenon, there seems to be some terrible, obscure, operative principle behind him. The fact that we are unable to imagine what that principle may be is what makes him so terrifying.
There doesn't appear to be any such principle behind Arthur Burns. Languishing in squalor in his desert lair, he pursues no agenda, beyond eating rancid meat and swatting at flies. Yet he knows poetry, appreciates a well-sung song, and never fails to admire a beautiful sunset. The evil which Burns embodies and perpetrates in his godforsaken corner of the world is, to be sure, terrible enough. But it stands little chance of withstanding civilization's encroachment, whether Captain Stanley can foresee that day or not.
Which brings us to the film's title. Stanley charges Charlie Burns (Pearce) with the task of bringing his big brother's career to an end. Charlie must choose between barbarism and humanity, but why does he choose as he does? I am not convinced Cave has created a character who knows.
Various precedents for this premise come to mind. When, in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, society has no answer for unbridled evil, The Stone Guest intervenes and drags the villain down to Hell. In Peter Greenaway's film The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover, a post-Enlightenment world has no supernatural foil for the villain, who marauds unopposed by any civil authority. At the outset of The Proposition we understand that Arthur Burns (Huston) and those in his thrall, are capable of the most outrageous atrocities and care nothing about human society. Who in this world can withstand such a creature? We are shown at every turn how Burns and his clan seem to be as natural to this harsh, unforgiving environment as desert scorpions. In contrast to their very nature are Martha Stanley (Watson) and Eden Fletcher (Wenham), who choose to pretend their rose bushes and fine saddle horses are no more incongruous here than if they were back in England. It is their unexamined assumption that British justice can also be transplanted to the Outback that places Captain Stanley Martha's devoted husband and Fletcher's dutiful enforcer at the center of this story.
The Proposition is really the project of Nick Cave, a songwriter who created both its screenplay and its musical score. Both are adequate for the telling of this engaging story, but what of its archetypal monster? The Judge in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian, seems to be more than a man and more like a force of nature. Whether man or phenomenon, there seems to be some terrible, obscure, operative principle behind him. The fact that we are unable to imagine what that principle may be is what makes him so terrifying.
There doesn't appear to be any such principle behind Arthur Burns. Languishing in squalor in his desert lair, he pursues no agenda, beyond eating rancid meat and swatting at flies. Yet he knows poetry, appreciates a well-sung song, and never fails to admire a beautiful sunset. The evil which Burns embodies and perpetrates in his godforsaken corner of the world is, to be sure, terrible enough. But it stands little chance of withstanding civilization's encroachment, whether Captain Stanley can foresee that day or not.
Which brings us to the film's title. Stanley charges Charlie Burns (Pearce) with the task of bringing his big brother's career to an end. Charlie must choose between barbarism and humanity, but why does he choose as he does? I am not convinced Cave has created a character who knows.