new Australian prison film Inside is an astonishing debut
- Written by: Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
Every so often a film comes along that’s so good that, as we sit in the dark in the cinema, our whole being seems to become charged with electricity and we find ourselves forgetting to breathe. All of our thoughts become anchored to the screen, and the suspension of disbelief comes as close to complete as it ever could be.
Inside, written and directed by first time feature filmmaker Charles Williams (he won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for his 2018 short film, All These Creatures, so he’s not exactly a beginner), is such a film.
To say it’s one of the best Australian films I’ve seen is to qualify it with an unnecessary adjective – it’s one of the best films I’ve seen, period.
A rich tradition of prision dramas
Australian cinema has a rich tradition focusing on gangsters and criminals, from Bruce Beresford’s masterful hardboiled larrikin thriller Money Movers (1978) to more recent examples like Justin Kurzel’s hypnotic Snowtown (2011).
Within this subset there have been some stellar prison films. Everynight, Everynight (1994) still packs a punch, and the opening and closing sections of Chopper (2000), set in prison, are the most compelling parts of the movie.
Inside follows juvenile murderer Mel Blight (Vincent Miller) as he turns 18 and is moved to adult prison while awaiting (but perhaps not really wanting) parole.
Once there, he befriends charismatic career criminal Warren Murfett (Guy Pearce) who takes him under his wing and tries to coerce him into murdering fellow inmate Mark Shepard (Cosmo Jarvis), a child murderer with a contract recently taken out on him by the family of his victim.
Mel can get close enough to Shepard to do the hit – he befriends Shepard while sharing a cell with him, and starts playing keyboard in accompaniment of Shepard’s bizarre born-again sermons – but whether or not he will do so generates much of the tension of the film.
Measured intensity
Williams spent six years working on the film, and it shows.
Every element is meticulously realised, from the litany of striking, monstrous faces of the extras in the prison (who seem so authentic, one assumes Williams used real convicts) to the perverse but wholly believable actions of Murfett’s estranged son Adrian (Toby Wallace), when Murfett visits him for a day trip.
(Let’s just say it’s no sentimental reunion: there’s nothing Shawshank Redemption about Inside.)
The film is so good as a whole that it’s perhaps unfair to single out any element, but the score by Chiara Costanza is particularly mesmerising. It captures – in a low-key fashion – the mix of controlled fear and narcissistic bravado that constitutes life inside for these characters.
The performances match the measured intensity of the rest of the film.
Jarvis is astonishingly good as Mark Shepherd. He emanates a kind of calm, restrained power at all times, as though his body is primed for shocking violence at any moment, yet devoid of frenetic energy. He’s so good, it’s hard to believe this British actor isn’t an Australian.
Fellow countryman Wallace is similarly brilliant, endowing his small role as Murfett’s son with a memorable combination of arrogance and nastiness.
Miller as Mel, in his first feature film, possesses a quality of stillness difficult for a young actor to achieve. All that nervous energy has to go somewhere, and it usually goes into bigger and louder.
Pearce is also fine, though as a seasoned screen veteran of this kind of role, one senses he could do it in his sleep.
Stunningly simple
Inside’s stunningly simple narrative sustains profound analyses of and reflections on the human character and condition.
This is one example of the classical Hollywood narrative structure being done with precision and purpose, with form and content seamlessly operating together in the unfolding of the drama.
There are no self-conscious winks at the viewer, no homages to genre, and no attempts to be clever. Watching the film is a decidedly intense experience – it contains one of the most viscerally shocking scenes I’ve seen – but at the same time this is underscored in places by an extremely subtle, wry sense of humour, like when Murfett and Mel bond over (the now defunct) Fantales lollies.
The film refuses to give the viewer an easy moral position. There are no pat explanations of characters’ motivations and actions, no attempts at psychologically or morally explaining away the ambiguities and tensions of this world to appease the stomach of the viewer.
The film refuses to give the viewer an easy moral position.
Bonsai Films
This sets it apart from the vast majority of commercial films made these days. Though it represents the actions of the characters within a context (which is both personal and sociological), there’s no nifty three-minute speech at the end about how crime begets crime, or how we should treat prisoners more humanely.
Simply put, Inside is a brilliant film. Williams poetically charges a fairly conventional Aussie prison narrative with profound existential questions in a way that never feels overbearing or heavy-handed. He proves himself, here, a formidable writer-director.
I can’t wait to see the next film he makes. If the critical acclaim certain to follow Inside is indicative, it should be in fewer than six years.
Authors: Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
