HIGH COUNTRY
Saturdays, BBC1
Brits often think they know the (Australian) Lucky Country, but unless they’ve visited, they’re probably only “aware” of Neighbours’ fictional Ramsay Street in Melbourne, or Home and Away’s equally fictional Summer Bay in New South Wales. However, more remote parts of the continent-country are now beginning to be spectacularly exploited for television.
Set in the fictional rural town of Broken Ridge (in the comically named – by European standards – Australian ‘Alps’ in the state of Victoria), BBC1’s latest Australian import introduces us to Detective Andie Whitford (Leah Purcell), her partner Helen (Sara Wiseman) and their daughter Kirra, who have recently moved from the city.
Part police procedural (people mysteriously disappear, no-nonsense cop shows up) with hints of indigenous mysticism as seen in True Detective’s recent Night Country, this is an example of the burgeoning “Outback Noir” genre.
Set in the fictional rural town of Broken Ridge, High Country introduces us to Detective Andie Whitford (pictured), played by Leah Purcell.
Andie, who is of Indigenous descent, embarks on an emotional journey that is marked by growing up not knowing her “people,” while Helen and Kirra have their own problems.
Andie, feeling disoriented, reflects on the fate of a man who has abandoned his car in the “mountains”: “Whatever personal problem he was dealing with, he made his family victims of it. And so did I.” “Well, at least you haven’t buried us in the backyard,” Helen says. “Yet,” Andie replies.
It is a very interesting intensive course on antipodal studies.
Just as Brits think they “know” Australia, they also think they “know” Australians. Occasional linguistic misunderstandings aside (e.g. different opinions on what constitutes a “thong”), we share a quirky (un-American) humour. That’s why the brilliant Colin From Accounts was such a hit in the UK.
It’s best not to scoff at its “mountains” though – Australia’s highest “Alp” is Mount Bogong at 6,516ft, and Europe’s highest is Mont Blanc at 15,774ft. As the camera pans over the “peaks” of this stunning terrain, however, the term “High Country” is a misnomer – it’s a wild forest of overwhelming scale and density – “Tree Country”. It’s a wonder more Australians aren’t disappearing, frankly.
Meanwhile, the vast, empty and dangerous continent has enormous cultural differences with our own. Not least is the fact that, exactly as in America, its colonizers displaced (and in practice replaced) the indigenous population.
British writer Kathryn Flett (pictured) gave Australian film High Country a four-star rating
Although I was born in the UK, my parents were Australian, and while my father was from the city, my mother grew up on 32,000 hectares (125 square miles). My mother’s family owned their land for eight generations, until 20th-century divorce settlements wiped it out. It is fitting that this was, after all, land that had once “belonged” to others, which effectively “disappeared”.
My son is going to Australia soon for a gap year or two. As well as getting in touch with his own colonial “roots”, he will find that understanding the crazy scale of the Lucky Country is also absolutely essential.
Watching High Country, a highly engaging, well-written series filled with interesting characters, is actually a crash course in antipodean studies.
He’s not a gladiator, certainly!
Those who are about to die
Amazon Prime
Anthony Hopkins plays Emperor Vespasian (pictured) in Those About To Die, directed by Roland Emmerich, who directed Independence Day.
Amazon’s new sword-and-sandals epic series, directed by cinematic blockbuster specialist Roland (Independence Day) Emmerich, is based on the same nonfiction book (by Daniel P Mannix) that inspired Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, but it couldn’t be more different.
Light on subtlety, heavy on CGI, it’s the year 79 AD, and “Rome, once the beacon of civilization, is now a pit of corruption and decay” (soundtracked voiceover).
There are familiar faces among the cast of (seemingly) thousands, with big signing Anthony Hopkins scowling and marking his turn as Emperor Vespasian.
Elsewhere, British near-stars JoJo Macari, Iwan Rheon, Moe Hashim and Tom Hughes battle a script seemingly written by AI.
“That man is deciding who will be sent to Rome as gladiators and who will be sent to the tin mines of Crete.”
‘What are tin mines?’ (sic)
“A death sentence.”
Phew! After two episodes, I had a feeling that something very important had happened somewhere in Italy in 79 AD. No spoilers here, though Google backed up my intuition. Suffice it to say that future gladiator heroes and their heroines had better avoid spending their holidays anywhere near Naples…
Something fishy here
Channel 4’s ‘Suspect’ stars Anne-Marie Duff as psychologist Susannah (pictured)
Having not seen the first season of Suspect (episode 4), I dove into the second, seduced by the cast. However, I managed to watch only a couple of episodes of this frankly disturbing thriller before deciding that life is too short.
This dark, poorly written adaptation of a Danish hit, with an implausible plot, picks up right after the first season: psychologist Susannah (Anne-Marie Duff) returns to work three weeks after the death of her daughter, to help a stranger (Dominic Cooper) who knocks on her door… quit smoking. But is that what he really wants?
Don’t be fooled by the (bewilderingly) star-studded cast, which includes Tamsin Greig, Ben Miller, Eddie Marsan and Gina McKee: this is a film to avoid.
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