William Dafoe stars in a moody, atmospheric film about a search for the Tasmanian Tiger. There have been recent sightings and an evil multinational wants to find the tiger first. Martin David (Dafoe) is told to bring back hair, blood or organs.

He travels to the sublimely filmed Tasmanian wilderness and encounters hostility from the logging community, who assume he is an environmentalist, from what they presumably heard on the grapevine.

Sam Neill and Frances O’Connor play the other main characters with naturalness and empathy. The children, played by Morgana Davies and Finn Woodlock, give wonderful performances. We are drawn into their lives of precociousness and suffering. They have been given a lovely script and deft direction by Daniel Nettheim.

Several of the characters have shades of good and evil, which gives the film unexpected richness.

Events in the wilderness bring tension to this beautifully understated film. I recommend it highy.

©Mark Pigott

29th September, 2011
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