The Ethics of Snowtown's Suburban Nightmare
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ABOVE: JAMIE (LUCAS PIHAWAY), NICHOLAS (MATTHEW HOWARD), TROY (ANTHONY GROVES) AND ALEX (MARCUS HOWARD) IN SNOWTOWN INSET: OANIEL HENSHALL AS NOTOÜÖiJS MURDERER JOHN BUNTING SNOWTOWN Bringin of real-life murders SUBURBAN^ to the screen is an extraordinarily delicate task, especially when NIGHTMARE! the crimes are both local and recent. Alexandra Hellei^ Nicholas reveals how this sophisticated film treads the fine line between authenticity and exploitation. ' LUCAS PiTTfflnnflF i5 m^WtSfflffi m firo ffl-W DcBtfT Snowtown \s a sophisticated and confidently LTHOUGH only one of the were one and the same) evolved into a produced erupt in a frenzy of torture, mutilation twelve shocking murders that series of murders that targeted the weak and murder. This is a far cry even from Aconstitute Austraiia's most and socially neglected: the sick, the film whose the perverse charm of Wolf Creek's notorious serial killings occurred there, disabled, drug addicts and ultimately slickness (Greg McLean, 2005) Mick Tayior (John the very name Snowtown - a small anyone who sparked Bunting's ire. never becomes Jarrat): while Wolf Creek has some ties town 145 kilometres north of Adelaide According to Gail Mason, the kill- to reaiity, being a loose amalgam of the self-indulgent - has become synonymous with some ings became 'increasingiy ritualised', Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch of the most unspeakable and unim- and incorporated 'the use of music, or irrelevant kiiiings, the grim reaiity of Bunting's aginabie horrors to take place in this repetitive behaviour and key phrases'.^^ to its central crimes are as far from McLean's deliber- country. The discovery of eight bodies During their ordeals, many victims were ate subversion of the Mick 'Crocodile' thematic in six acid-filled barréis in an old bank forced to record messages onto tapes Dundee figure as can be imagined. building on 20 May 1999 revealed the explaining their absence, which Bunting grisly, detailed reality of what public and his accomplices would play back to Despite offering a brave and intelligent memory remembers only under the the victims' families and loved ones to interpretation ofthe story leading up umbrella terms of 'torture' and 'murder': discourage them from investigating their to the discovery of the barrels - for a fiayed, slashed and cut bodies, often disappearance. Bunting also attained number of reasons that wili be explored the victims of extreme sexual and personal information from his later vic- further in this article - Snowtown non-sexual mutilations executed with tims, allowing him to fraudulently collect (Justin Kürzel, 2011) finds its ethi- as diverse and sickening an array of between $70,000 and $95,000 worth of cal view decidedly divided. On one weapons as pliers, cigarette lighters Centrelink benefits. hand, the film's treatment of its central and fireworks. After the iongest criminal Viassakis figure addresses the ethical trial ever recorded in South Australian The overwhelming ferociousness of the minefield of the terrifying and tragic history, 37-year-oid John Bunting was so-caiied Snowtown murders renders cycle where victims of vioience can convicted of eieven murders,' and his them far more challenging to bring to themselves become perpetrators. At accomplices Robert Wagner, James the screen than most other Australian the same time, the film's treatment of Vlassakis and Mark Haydon were con- true crime stories. Bunting's story does Bunting relies heavily upon a two- victed of a range of additional offences not engage with the 'wild coloniai boy' dimensional melodramatic depiction spanning from covering up the crimes mythology that violent yet loveable 'bad of old-fashioned, moustache-twirling to assisting in the murders themselves. boys' like Chopper Read or Ned Kelly evil, marked as much by his terrifying evoke. Closer in tradition to Fred West crimes as by the absence of any real What began for Bunting and his cohorts or Ed Gein, Bunting's crimes offer an enquiry into his personality. But it is this as a vicious campaign against homo- altogether different history in their bleak lack of information that has marked the sexuals and paedophiles (who for him reality, where violence, hate and class Snowtown case itself more broadly: 16 • Metro Magazine 169 i © ATOM & NEW ZEALAND since the first arrests were made in 1999. 229 suppression orders have been applied to the case (including one relating to information of cannibalism),^ and as of January 2011, more than 150 of these remain in place." This is a case marked by rumour, innuendo and fear, but most of all by the unutterable nature of its details. Be it due to legal necessity or the sheer horror that befell Bunting's victims, the film itself - like the very word 'Snowtown' - speaks of contradictory and confusing silences as much as it does of facts. Snowtown: from headline to screen Kurzel grew up in Gawler, about a thirty-minute drive from where the bulk seeks a different avenue for potential of the murders took place, in Salisbury controversy, expressing outrage that North in Adelaide. Snowtown, which $250,000 of Victorian tax dollars would marks Kurzel's feature debut, began be spent on the film's production. The shooting in August 2010, and the direc- newspaper goes on to quote victims- tor was adamant that they maintain a of-crime advocate Steve Medcraft, particular sensitivity towards the fact who argues, 'it's insulting that the State that they were telling the story of real Government is spending money on people in a reai place. As such, he glorifying murders in South Australia shot on location with a cast of mostly and victims don't even have access to local actors. The movie closely follows appeal costs like accommodation and the teenage character of Jamie (Lucas travel'.^ Despite - or perhaps because Pittaway, based on Vlassakis). who of - the controversy surrounding the lives with his mother Elizabeth (Louise film, its success has not yet been Harris) and two younger brothers in a As many of the victims' families are greatly hindered. It won the audience bleak home in suburban Adelaide. After still alive and the locations in question award when it premiered in early 2011 all three boys fall victim to a local pae- are areas where many residents face at the Adelaide Film Festival, and was dophile, Elizabeth struggles to support ongoing economic and social hard- selected to play at the prestigious her children. Later, when the charismat- ships, the filmmakers went to great Critics' Week at this year's Cannes ic John (Daniel Henshall) appears, he lengths to treat the film's subject mat- Film Festival. provides a sense of paternal security ter with sensitivity. They liaised with the for the boys, particularly Jamie. By the Victims' Rights Commissioner Michael Treading a fine line time John's darker side begins to make O'Connell, the Snowtown Management itself apparent to Jamie, the deeply Committee and a number of other Any accolades are fully deserved. With traumatised boy is far too emotionally groups and individuals from Adelaide's its only glaring formal weakness being reliant on John to extract himself from northern suburbs. Regardless, the a reliance upon the currently ubiquitous his mentor's violent control. Conflicted project has hardly been immune to blue-green colour palette. Snowtown and alienated to the point where he controversy, with one news report is a sophisticated and confidently turns to heroin, Jamie is so damaged claiming it attracted 'the ire of victims' produced film whose slickness never by his earlier sexual abuse and John's families and Snowtown residents', and becomes self-indulgent or irrelevant to influence that he participates in a that despite the fact that 'more than its central thematic concerns. Kurzel's number of the crimes, including the 40 relatives were invited to a private earlier experiences near suburbs like final murder in the notorious Snowtown screening ... none chose to attend'.^ Salisbury North grant him a vision of a bank vault. An article in Melbourne's Herald Sun world that he makes diegetically true: ©ATOM I Metro Magazine 169» 17 & NEW ZEALAND it is a world that those from Sydney's most obvious reason for this is simply Snowtown through its name alone, the The project can North Shore or Melbourne's inner- that any depiction of Bunting beyond film only adds to the seemingly ines- eastern suburbs may too easily dismiss that of a two-dimensional villain who be described capable legacy of Bunting's crimes on as clichéd, but one that some of us will embodies pure evil could be miscon- as nothing that small town, a community that has recognise on a near-visceral level to be strued as potentially defending Bunting already carried the weight of notoriety short of brave grounded in reality. The performances and his actions. Even the most vague for well over a decade. are exceptional, with Piftaway and suggestion of sympathy risks demean- for its head-on Harris in particular bringing a quiet ing the seriousness of his crimes, engagement The gaps that exist among the publicly desperation to their roles that excludes which, in terms of the surviving families known facts add to the haunting and with the any sense of synthetic earnestness. and loved ones of those victims, is not horrifying impact of Bunting's crimes, Snowtown should also be commended just offensive, but ethically grotesque. morally hazy granting them a legacy and a power for avoiding exploitation. If viewed on its This observation does not, therefore, terrain where unlike any other Australian true crime own, the one moment of truly graphic stand to suggest that the filmmakers story brought to the screen. Indeed, victims become violence may seem reminiscent of the should have done otherwise - I do it is as much what is known as what now arguably defunct 'torture porn' hor- not believe they could have, given the perpetrators.