Snowtown

About the film

Justin Kurzel's eminent debut, 'Snowtown', should come with a warning: This is definitely not for sensitive souls. The film is based on the most bestial serial killings in Australia's history, and adroitly endows the unreal series of events with cinematic credibility. The 16-year-old Jamie lives together with his mother and two younger brothers in the desolate trailer park, Snowtown, in a part of Adelaide's Northern suburbs. Every hope of escaping their social inheritance seems to be drowned in cigarette smoke and empty gazes, but when the mother's charismatic alpha male boyfriend, John, who chases the heels of a slightly pedophile cousin, suddenly starts spending more time together with his family, Jamie nonetheless sees an opportunity for change. Jamie is childishly fascinated by John's manifestly masculine attitude, but instead of a fatherly role model he gets a dubious wild card to a human downfall, which he hardly would have imagined. The social portrayal in 'Snowtown' evokes memories of last year's 'Winter's Bone', as does the cool and nauseatingly blue-grey images, which contribute to the inescapable horror of the drama.