Red Hill

Just read on Cinematical that Sony pictures has picked up the distribution rights to the Australian neo-western film Red Hill. The film stars native-Australian Ryan Kwanten, who most might know as the lovable-yet-dimwitted Jason Stackhouse on Alan Ball's TrueBlood series (bet you didn't know he was an Aussie).



Cinematical classifies Red Hill as a Neo-Western, most likely due to its contemporary setting. For those keeping track, the Robert Rodriquez westerns (El Mariachi, Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico) are also lumped under this category. The case can also be made for the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men being similarly classified, although I feel it presents the juxtaposition between traditional Western film traditions (as genre, not ideology) and modern tensions in a different way than the aforementioned films.


Side note: I absolutely LOVE Westerns. They are so rich with thematic content, classical plot structure and an adherence to the land that makes for gorgeous long-pan shots. From an analytic standpoint, Westerns are also hugely influential to contemporary film studies, as they form the backbone of genre studies, which was an important development in the standardization of the discipline. The above screen grab is from John Hughes' Stagecoach, the film that gave the genre credibility, and launched John Wayne's career. But I digress.

Red Hill looks really interesting to me because it seems to actively incorporate the notion of the "modern town" with elements that define the Western genre. Also, it's set in Australia, which means the film has the potential to include a whole slew of niche cultural traits and tensions not normally seen in traditional American Westerns. For a film nerd like me, this sounds pretty interesting. Check out the trailer below, and see if you agree with what I'm saying.