STACK #136 Feb 2016

DVD & BD FEATURE

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A character-driven three- hander, Cut Snake follows former con A CRIME STORY WITH BITE “It’s a much more rudimentary medium, but it really helps craft your storytelling skills; you realise Director Tony Ayres twists the rules of Australian crime films with the serpentine thriller CUT SNAKE . By Scott Hocking • Cut Snake is out Feb 3

Also, and more importantly, we felt that even though Sparra’s dilemma is very contemporary, what kind of life he could live, I felt that the choice he makes is much more urgent in the ‘70s than it would be now.” Although resembling a traditional crime film , Cut Snake has added bite, with a major plot twist sending it slithering off in a different direction. “It starts out as a conventional thriller that you feel you’ve seen before,” says Ayres, “then halfway through it gets turned on its head.” The catalyst for this plot detour is the character of Pommie, whose menacing presence dominates the film. Played with ample machismo by Sullivan Stapleton, Ayres admits a special affection for his bad guy. “He really jumped off the page – a charming, charismatic psychopath… He really embodies a lot of contradictions, which makes for a great character. “I’ve known Sullivan for a few

Sparra (Alex Russell), who has left his unlawful ways behind and settled into a new life with fiancée Paula (Jessica De Gouw). But before long the past catches up with him in the hulking shape of cellmate Pommie (Sullivan Stapleton), who pressures him into returning to a life of crime.

very quickly what’s necessary and what isn’t. Cinema is more a director’s medium with more time and resources.” Ayres reveals that the bombing of Brisbane’s Whiskey Au Go Go nightclub in 1973 provided the

D i r e c t o r T o n y A y r e s

inspiration for Cut Snake , and although the film is set in Melbourne, he and Ayshford

Directed by Tony Ayres from a screenplay by Blake Ayshford, Cut Snake was a project that spent over a decade in development hell before its release in 2015. “The script took a long time to find its form and there were issues of financing,” Ayres explains. “I first read it in 2003, but I didn’t come onto it officially until 2009. When I came onboard we shifted the direction of the script and that took a couple of years to do. But honestly, one of the issues we have with feature films in Australia is that our best writers are always so busy with TV, and it’s hard to get them available to write movies. So it was a combination of those factors.” Ayres himself is heavily involved in television, having created the AACTA-winning supernatural drama series Glitch as well as serving as executive producer on The Slap , and notes that TV offers writers greater scope for storytelling than feature films.

It starts out as a conventional thriller that you feel you’ve seen before, then halfway through it gets turned on its head.

DVD & BD

years as a friend and he was my first choice for the role,” he continues. “He was able to exude both menace and vulnerability, and that’s quite a task.” Cut Snake is the latest in a recent run of Aussie crime thrillers, which includes Son of a Gun and Kill Me Three Times . It’s a genre we appear to have an ongoing obsession with, although Ayres believes the fascination isn’t just local, it’s global. “If you look at entertainment across the world, crime is a recurring theme. We notice it more in Australian cinema because we don’t make that many films, and when there’s a year or two with a whole bunch of crime films, you notice it more. "The thing about crime is that it’s high stakes drama, and people are fascinated by lives that go wrong – it satisfies a kind of voyeurism, perhaps, in audiences. “For filmmakers, the attraction to crime is that the drama is life and death, and big drama is what attracts storytellers.”

felt it important to retain the seventies’ setting. “[The bombing of the Whiskey Au Go Go] was integral to the writing,” he says. “We always wanted to keep that reference, even though the story moved away from the real story that influenced it.

Here in Straya, we know the title means ‘mad as a cut snake’. But overseas viewers

have Buckley’s chance, and are

probably wondering what an injured Joe Blake has got to do with it. Strewth! Here’s four more bonza bits of fair dinkum Aussie slang:

FLAT OUT LIKE A LIZARD DRINKING Incredibly busy FEW CANS SHORT OF A SIX-PACK Dumb, not the full quid

FIT AS A MALLEE BULL Strong, in top nick

SHE’LL BE APPLES No worries mate

Sullivan Stapleton and Alex Russell

FEBRUARY 2016

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