Review: Wake In Fright

Wake in Fright is an amazing film, nominated for the Cannes Palme d’Or when it as first released.  The movie is directed by Ted Kotcheff, and released in 1971, and based on the Kenneth Cook novel of the same name.  The original negatives were recently found, and the movie has been restored and re-released recently.

If you are a fan of dark, disturbing films that have an extremely homo-erotic vibe, Wake in Fright is the movie you should add to your wishlist.  From the beginning of the film where a lonely schoolteacher is thrust into a large bar full of only men, mostly shirtless, to the end of the film in which a drunken man-man sex overnighter happens, this film is hot!  You also get to see a beautiful shot of Gary Bond's beautiful behind!  Bond's butt as he lies flat on the bed with a blistering hangover is worth the price of admission.  This particular scene also is the beginning of his character, John Grant's, descent into his own personal hell of misery and self-questioning in the Australian Outback.  You will be absolutely mesmerized by this film.

The LA Times calls Wake in Fright "a strictly psychological portrait of destructive masculinity," but I beg to disagree.  I would say that it is freedom - in the Outback - that is the destructive element here.  Freedom is destructive, freedom has a way of destroying things.  Raw male sexuality does have a lot in common with brutal animal hunts, drunkenness, gambling, and the like.  Modern polite society has tried to check the impulse, and thus it remains bottled in most.  Those guys who are rough trade seem able to make the leap without a trip to Australia.