Australian director’s desperate female revenge drama’Nightingale’ by Bong Joon-ho

Jennifer Kent’s new movie’Nightingale’, which director Bong Joon-ho selected as the three notable next-generation film directors, will be released on the 30th. [사진 제이앤씨미디어그룹]

Claire (Isling Francis) wakes up from fainting with a bruised face, and finds her husband, who is out of breath, wide open his eyes. The newborn daughter was thrown to the floor and killed. Claire howl. Swearing bloody retaliation against the British troops who raped themselves the night before and slaughtered their families.
The movie’Nightingale’ (director Jennifer Kent), which is released on the 30th, is a horror reminiscent of the terrible revenge of a woman in the terrible history of the British colonial era in Australia. Tasmania, Australia at the beginning of the outbreak of the’Black War’ in 1825, when British troops massacred black natives. According to Jennifer Kent, 50, an Australian director who also wrote and co-produced, among the prisoners forcibly mobilized by the British government to pioneer Australia at the time were women who committed misdemeanor crimes to balance gender. The protagonist is Claire, an Irish prisoner who was called’Nightingale’ for his beautiful song. Hawkins (Sam Klaplin), an English officer who didn’t let him go after his sentence, was raped by his men and her husband and baby. He pursued Hawkins and headed north. The indigenous Billy (Bacoly Gunembar), who has lost the entire tribe to the whites, accompanies him.

“I have studied the history of our country for many years. It took only a very short time to find the atrocities in this film. The story itself in the movie is fictional, but it’s all based on facts, and what happened was worse.” This is the story Kent told the American media VOX last year.
In his debut film’Go’ (2014), he empathizes with the surreal struggle of a storybook containing evil spirits from the exhausted inner world of a modern single mom with a son with a behavioral disorder. His previous work was selected as the’Best Horror Movie in 10 Years’ by the American media’Taste of Cinema’. Director Bong Joon-ho said, “’Go’ is a great horror movie,” and named him as the next-generation director to watch, along with Ari Esther (‘Yujeon’), Ali Abbasi (‘Borderline’), and Yun Ga-eun (‘My House).
This film, which he turned to 200 years ago, is more than just a period drama. The inner murderous scene of the victims of violence has a strong appeal to the present audience. Also noteworthy is the point that portrayed this as an era beyond the tragic madness of an individual. Claire, who was a racist like other white people of the day, convincingly embodied the journey of gradually empathizing and solidarity with the pain of indigenous Billy.
The only female director film theory was invited to the competition section of the Venice Film Festival in 2018, and was praised as “a film that is essential for this era” (Times UK) “A work with multiple sides (as seen in Tarantino’s film)” (Chicago leader). He won the Special Jury Award and the New Actor Award (Bacalliger Nemvar).

British actor Sam Klaplin, who appeared in the movie’The Hunger Games”Love, Rosie’, played the role of British officer Hawkins, and played the cruel evil hidden behind a smile. [사진 제이앤씨미디어그룹]

Two principles Kent insisted are accuracy and authenticity. Since he did not want to reflect Claire’s journey beautifully, he refrained from using drones and made clothes such as dresses and military uniforms with dyes and hand-sewn used in the 19th century. This also applies to the moments of rape and human hunting that Claire and indigenous women suffer. Tasmanian indigenous elders participated in the production process to accurately testify the history of racial discrimination and the indigenous language that is in danger of disappearing, and both the director and the actor were advised by psychologists to faithfully melt the victim’s emotions and trauma into facial expressions. Even though the wounded and naked body is not displayed on the screen, the pain of the raw is still passed on.

Astonishingly, this film is his acting debut as an Australian native Billy. Actually, she was a native of Australia, and she was active as a dancer who has incorporated indigenous traditional dances in a modern way. She accidentally saw an audition announcement and participated in a movie. [사진 제이앤씨미디어그룹]

Director Kent said, “By solving the problem related to violence in the past, we tried to give the present people the feeling that the audience watching the movie is not attacked by making it possible to look at it objectively from a distance.” , At the time of its first screening at the Sydney Film Festival in Australia last year, about 30 audiences left the theater for extreme depictions. Director Kent said, “Even in this era, violence and arrogance based on it are prevalent in the world.” Above all else, “What is the alternative to violence and revenge? In that, we asked ourselves how to maintain humanity.” The message he emphasized in the film is that compassion and empathy are true hopes against discrimination and hatred.

The actors cast with the actual growth background in mind also add a sense of immersion. Isling Francis, who has played a strong woman in the HBO drama’Game of Thrones’ and the movie’Jimmy’s Hall’, is actually an Italian-Irish person. He has a career as an opera singer for 10 weeks before rehearsing with director Kent for this film. In addition to physical training such as horseback riding, wood cutting, and musket shooting, he also studied psychologically about victims of sexual violence. Bakali Gunembar, who plays Billy, is actually an indigenous dancer from Australia, and debuted with this film after watching a Facebook audition announcement and won the Venice New Actor Award.

Director Jennifer Kent’s debut film,’Go’, attracted attention. It is a horror thriller that portrays the process of exposing madness by a single mom nurse raising a young son alone, fighting a fairy tale book with evil spirits. [사진 나이너스엔터테인먼트]

Reporter Na Won-jeong [email protected]