The Hunter

Adapted from Julia Leigh’s novel of the same name, The Hunter is both a classic tale of man versus beast and a chilling explora­tion of the ethics involved when the goals of multinational corporations conflict with the natural world. It’s also a compelling allegory charting one troubled man’s foray into dual wildernesses: the remote Tasmanian hills and his own soul.

Martin (Willem Dafoe) is a mercenary hired by an international biotech com­pany to track and kill an animal long thought extinct. The thylacine — more traditionally known as the Tasmanian tiger — has recently become the subject of rumoured sightings around the remote community. Martin arrives cloaked in a false identity and heads for the hills. Trudging through the spectacular, almost impenetra­ble landscape, he sets traps and lays in wait for days at a time.

Increasingly troubled by his fruitless hunt and the escalating violence between local loggers and environmentalists, Martin returns more frequently to the family home where he rented a room. The house is in disarray: the father, himself a hunter of the extinct tiger, is missing and presumed dead; his grieving wife has taken to her bed under a haze of tranquilizers; and their two young children are practically feral. It’s the persistent and guileless pestering of the eldest of these children, a young girl aptly named Sass (Morgana Davies), that begins to crack Martin’s brusque facade and leads him to question the implications of accomplishing his task.

Cinematographer Robert Humphreys (who shot the 2007 Festival title Unfinished Sky) captures the ravishing beauty of Tasmania, a landscape underscored by eerie stillness and mystery. It is, however, Dafoe’s powerful performance that propels the film. Struggling to find human connections but unrepentant in his quest to kill his target, Martin must make hard choices if he hopes to comfort his restless heart. –TIFF