GOLD

Australia, 2022, 97 minutes, Colour.

Zac Efron, Anthony Hayes, Susie Porter.

Directed by Anthony Hayes.

There have been several films with this title, usually action adventures with Roger Moore and Matthew McConnaughey. This is definitely not one of those films.

This is a grim film. It has been written and directed by Anthony Hayes, prominent Australian character actor () and it has been filmed in the outback of South Australia, vast open spaces, deserts, mountains, dead trees, rocks, wolfish wild dogs, scorpions and snakes.

And the star of the film is that Efron, in the film the whole time, often by himself. First seen as a train and carriages move through the desert, he is in a carriage, kindly giving some food to a mother and child, arriving at a destination, a rather derelict outpost where he is picked up by the driver who is to taking to a new job, hard work, at The Compound. Anthony Hayes is the driver.

This is a Zac Efron quite a long way from high school musicals, Baywatch and even his rather raucous comedies. He is bearded, unkempt, a scar across his face, spending most of the time unwashed, dingy clothes, an old cap. We never know his name. Which means then that he is some kind of Everyman figure.

The film opens with the caption ‘some time, some place, not far from now’. Which sets something of post-apocalyptic tone, with image and desert references to such films as The Road and The Book of Eli. The two men drive through the desert, some vehicle mishaps, unexpectedly discovering a huge nugget of gold. The main drama is as to who will stay and guarding the gold and who will travel back to the towns for an excavator. Efron stays. Hayes goes.

Which turns the film into something of a desert Castaway, the man having to make shelter, ward off the heat, preserve the food and water. He does discover a plane wreck which enables him to scavenge some parts, drag them back to his shelter and build something a little more substantial. He also encounters a strange character, a woman with something of an Irish accent, suspicious, sinister, with dire consequences.

Anthony Hayes seems to have dosed on the classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), perhaps over-dosed a little. That was a film about search for gold, discovery of gold, greed, madness, violence. And that is what happens here.

Most stories, no matter how hard and harsh, have some kind of hope even as they cry “out of the depths”. Other films illustrate the theme, “Enter the Void”. This version of Gold is that kind of film even to the unexpected last half minute. Grim.

1. Title? Expectations? Action adventure?
2. Australian production, mid-Pacific accents, American tone? The location for the action, right-hand drive cars?
3. Filmed in South Australia, deserts, mountains? The musical score?
4. The serious intent of the film? The references to other films, post-apocalyptic desert journeys, the Treasure of the Sierra Marjorie, greed and madness?
5. Introduction to the Man, bearded, dirty, eating, the vista of the train, in the carriage, the mother and child, giving the food? Arriving at his destination, the outpost, searching, the man watching television and ignoring him, the toilet, wandering around the back, the arrival of the men to take him to The Compound?
6. A road film, the vehicle, the journey through the desert, days and nights, camping out? Trying to listen to the radio? The Man, keeping some anonymity, the scar on his face? The driver, more jovial, furious? The flat tyre and the changing of the tyre? The man and is interfering, engine trouble?
7. The Man wandering, discovering the gold nugget? Size, attempts to dig it out, failing? Decisions about the extractor? Who should go, who should stay? The Man and his decision, arguments to stay, the Driver and his explanations, leaving provisions, warnings, the phone?
8. The Man in the desert, like a castaway, the heat, the son, the marauding wolfish animals, wood for the fire, setting up the tent cover, food and water? Wandering, discovering the plane, continually returning, scavenging pieces, building up his own shelter? Attempts with the Gold, breaking of the piece and treasuring it?
9. The wandering strange woman, accent, conversation, but the plane, trying to get explanations, his refusal, the news of the waterhole, the confrontation, his hitting her, her death, digging the grave, the animals coming, retrieving her body, burning it? The impact of having killed her?
10. The Sand storm, blowing everything away? His dealings with scorpions, the slithering snake and his filling his water?
11. The happy band passing by and his not making contact?
12. The driver phoning him, sitting on the hill, watching him, the confrontation with the twin sister, his thinking he was hallucinating?
13. The fires, toward of the dogs, his wound and treatment of it after the Sand storm, the help from the sister? Lying on the ground, the dogs attacking, the brutality of his death?
14. The final irony, the driver coming, to retrieve the gold, his agreed, merciless, and being shot with the arrow?
15. A grim story – and with no final hope?