IN A SAVAGE LAND

Australia, 1999, 115 minutes, Colour.
Rufus Sewell, Martin Donovan, Maya Stange.
Directed by Bill Bennett.

In a Savage Land was written by writer-director Bill Bennett and his wife Jennifer Clough. Bennett had made a number of docu-dramas and small-budget dramas in the '80s. During the '90s he went to Hollywood and made Two If By Sea, which was not a commercial success. On his return, he made the very successful Kiss or Kill, which won Australian Film Institute awards. He followed this with a melodramatic love story set in Eastern Papua, The Trobriand Islands.

Two anthropologists go to study the sexual behaviour of the Papuans. They question each other's work, the wife encounters a pearl-trader and goes to another island for research while falling in love with him. There is a melodramatic build-up to a confrontation because of the triangle, because of the variety of attitudes of the whites towards the Papuans. The film ends with the outbreak of World War Two.

The film is a heightened melodrama - in the style of some of the films of directors like King Vidor in the '30s and '40s.

1. A film of Papua New Guinea: landscapes, primitive style, the savagery of the title? The title and the perspective of the West, studying the Papua New Guineans, converting them?

2. The title: the visuals, the seasons, the rain, the sea, the landscapes, the villages?

3. The title and the reference to the people, village life, traditions, war, cannibalism, suicide, marriage, mourning and death, castration? The special Trobriand Island cricket? The life of the Trobriand Islanders up to the early '40s?

4. The World War II setting - and the question of who was savage? The continued information throughout the film? The war in Europe? The war in the Pacific?

5. The presentation of the Papua New Guineans, acting as themselves, the authentic Trobriand Island settings? Audience attitudes towards the Papua New Guineans? Interest, curiosity, sympathy? The characters, the chief, the assistants, the children? The whites and their intrusion into the life of the Trobriand Islanders? Trade, exploitation (also on the part of the New Guineans)? Pearl diving and trade?

6. Philip, his American background, the serious academic, his work in Adelaide, the university lectures, the students in admiration? His personal awkwardness and clumsiness? The attraction to Evelyn, his motivation for the marriage? The proposal and his having to kneel in the street? His doing it? The application for the grant? The academic rivalry? The complementarity but his dominating his wife? The arrival in the Trobriands, their expectations, the house, working with the Islanders? Evelyn and the typing, her resentment? The cooking? The conventional sexual relationship, expression of sexuality, prudish and reserved? The later experimentation based on the Trobriand experience? The tensions in the marriage? Philip and his prejudging the issues for academic purposes, Evelyn's challenge? His authoritarian behaviour, speaking for her? The pathos of the girl and her suicide? The photos? The Administrator and his wife, Philip speaking for Evelyn, his returning to the village, her departure and his having to cope with it, suspicions of Carpenter? His being blamed by the women? Castration?

7. Evelyn as a strong woman of the '30s? Her study, admiration of Philip, being demanding at his proposal, the kneeling? The interview with the dean and her comments on the danger for women and men in the Trobriands? The arrival, the encounter with Carpenter (and the importance of the voice-over and her comment about the man, not her husband, the pearl)? The bet about the pearl with Carpenter? Setting up in the village, typing, her resentment about being domestic? Her anthropological views, Philip's contradictions? Her linguistic expertise? Her taking the photos, the child taking them, the confrontation with the Chief and the blame? The Administrator and seeing her as highly strung? The confrontation because of the photos? Philip speaking for her? Her going pearling with Carpenter, drinking with him, examining the pearls and their beauty? Her decision to leave, the voyage, paying Carpenter, the trek into the village, the confrontation with the villagers?

8. Carpenter, the loner, trader, his knowledge of the islands and the seas, of the people, his skills, the pearl-diving? The sexual tension with Evelyn? His taking her to the village, protecting her, out in the storm, her inviting him in?

9. The Reverend and his harshness, the attitude of the English missionary? His warning Philip and Evelyn off, the domination of colonial Christianity? His interfering with the funeral and mourning rites, attacking the paganism, wanting the old man to be buried in the Christian cemetery? His lending the books to Philip? The complaint to the Administrator?

10. The Administrator and his wife? His callowness, racism? Information about the war? Authoritarian? His wife and her conversation with Evelyn, tolerating his affairs? The attraction to Philip?

11. The build-up of the melodramatic situation. The final drama - resolution?

12. The use of melodrama to illustrate character and for insight into the history of New Guinea in the 40s?