It's an unwelcome responsibility to be the only one to write about this bubble from the swamp of fringe Australian production in which the hopes of a cross section of the country's film making talent are obviously emotionally invested. It has one great idea, the broken character absorbed into a cult gone bush is himself a therapist, which gives him some understanding of what is happening.
However if we are going to tackle this film on the level of high seriousness, which it clearly would like, note absence of religion which is the back bone of pretty well all such operations and the objection that sudden sodomy is not the central evil that makes them destructive.
The grainy images assembled in jagged discontinuity take a while to lose conviction and there are moments which engage - Winter's self dismissal, Le Marquand's Iraq monologue, the swinging at the punching bag routine. However on a single viewing there is no feeling that there is some great truth buried by the production's excessive length.
However if we are going to tackle this film on the level of high seriousness, which it clearly would like, note absence of religion which is the back bone of pretty well all such operations and the objection that sudden sodomy is not the central evil that makes them destructive.
The grainy images assembled in jagged discontinuity take a while to lose conviction and there are moments which engage - Winter's self dismissal, Le Marquand's Iraq monologue, the swinging at the punching bag routine. However on a single viewing there is no feeling that there is some great truth buried by the production's excessive length.