Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

The Man from Snowy River Blu-ray Movie Review

A Different Wild Frontier

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 11, 2012

In a long and varied career, the great Kirk Douglas has taken on just about every genre imaginable from the sword-and-sandal classic Spartacus to paranoid political drama with Seven Days in May to old-school science fiction in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He certainly knows his way around the American western, including his memorable turn as Doc Holliday in John Sturges' Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). A movie star so recognizably American was an interesting pick for the pivotal dual role of estranged brothers in a different kind of western, one unlike anything Douglas had made before, because it was set in Australia and dispensed with most of the familiar tropes you'd expect from a story on the American frontier. There were no posses, sheriffs, outlaws, wagon trains, showdowns at high noon or gun battles; in fact no guns were fired at all. There was, however, an expansive and overwhelming landscape that inspired awe in those who appreciated it and could also be dangerous to those who didn't respect it. And there were horses—lots of them.

The Man from Snowy River quickly established itself as an Australian classic. Based on a poem of the same name by Banjo Patterson, who also wrote "Waltzing Matilda" and appears on the Australian $10 note, the film was shot on location in the southeastern state of Victoria and celebrated both the land and the spirit of the people who had settled it. But the film was also successful internationally and has become a staple for family viewing, because it tells a coming-of-age story, and despite the intensity of the conflicts among its characters, it has relatively little violence. A love affair plays a key role, but it's a chaste relationship, and the most romantic moment is a dramatic rescue followed by a ride on horseback.

The film opens on a herd of wild horses—"brumbies", in local parlance—led by a black stallion. The herd has become notorious in the Snowy Mountain region circa 1888 for suddenly appearing and disappearing, stampeding wherever it pleases in an uncontrollable mob. The "brumby mob" is the closest thing the film has to a true antagonist. It's not exactly a villain, but a unique confluence of the untamed forces of nature and, as we eventually learn, primal human emotions.

At the moment, Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson) sees the brumbies as the possible salvation to the failing finances of the mountain ranch where he lives with his father, Henry (Terence Donovan), after Henry gave up looking for gold. With youthful enthusiasm, Jim hopes to corral the brumbies, then sell them, but while Jim and his father are working to build the corral, the brumbies stampede right by them, spooking one of their horses and causing an accident. Henry is mortally wounded.

At Henry's funeral, a group of local ranchers tell Jim they don't think he can manage alone, but Jim is cheered up by his father's old prospecting partner, Spur (Douglas), a colorful codger with a peg leg who's still working their old claim, hoping to strike gold. Spur gives Jim a horse, so that he can ride into town in the valley below and look for work. Chance encounters and Jim's own skills with horses land him a job as a ranch hand with Harrison (also Douglas), the richest man in the territory and also Spur's estranged brother. In a winking nod at the story's origin, Harrison's attorney is Andrew "Banjo" Patterson (David Bradshaw).

Jim's stock at the Harrison ranch rises considerably with the arrival of Clancy (Jack Thompson), a legendary trail boss and guide, who is also an old friend of Spur and Jim's father. Nobody believes Jim when he says he knows Clancy, but as soon as the big man makes his much-anticipated entrance, he walks up to Jim, shakes his hand and offers his condolences on the loss of his father, "a good mate". Still, even Clancy's seal of approval isn't enough to get Jim included on the cattle drive that Clancy has come to lead.

Jim stays behind, where he gets better acquainted with Harrison's daughter, Jessica (Sigrid Thornton), a tomboy who shares Jim's love of horses. Despite all her father's efforts to have her raised as a "lady", Jessica prefers the wilderness—a preference her maternal aunt, Rosemary (Lorraine Bayly) seems to encourage, having taken over Jessica's upbringing after her mother, Rosemary's sister, died in childbirth.

On a dare from Jessica, Jim successfully tames (in horseman terms, "breaks") a wild colt for which Harrison paid a fortune. Harrison is furious when he returns from the cattle drive and discovers everything that's been going on behind his back, and the result is one of those perfectly timed sequences of grand romantic events involving arguments, near catastrophe, a dramatic rescue and long-delayed confrontations in which secrets are revealed and old wounds are finally opened and given the chance to heal.

But the world can't be set right while the brumby mob still runs unchecked, and the film's finale is a pursuit of the wild herd involving Harrison, Clancy, Jim and just about every other man who can ride a horse. The sequence is famous for a horseback stunt that actor Tom Burlinson performed himself in one take (because a second take would have been too dangerous), as Jim and his mountain-bred horse plow down a steep slope in pursuit of the brumbies, braving a descent that no other rider is willing to risk. Like the brumby mob, Jim vibrates to the frequency of the mountains, which is why he's the only one who is capable of forging some sort of truce between the brumbies and civilization.

The Man from Snowy River Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fox's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of The Man from Snowy River provides a fine, film-like presentation of this widescreen 1982 classic, which means that grainophobes may not like it. The film's natural texture has been faithfully preserved, and grain is visible in almost every shot, sometimes quite obviously so. No apparent attempt has been made to flatten, freeze, de-noise or "degrain" the image, and the result preserves both the integrity of the image and the look of film—but the latter seems to have fallen out of fashion in many quarters, probably because so many people no longer have an opportunity to see such images in the age of digital cinema. The grain is more obvious in darker scenes, either indoors or at night, less so in brightly lit scenes, but in general the Blu-ray is an excellent example of how film grain is the very stuff of a cinematic image and how a well-crafted hi-def presentation is capable of presenting it accurately with eye-pleasing results.

Australian cinematographer Keith Wagstaff opted for a warm, almost pastel palette that emphasizes the story's romance. Even the forbidding mountain range, with its abrupt and dangerous changes in weather, always looks romantic and alluring, and warmer earth tones dominate the screen. Some minor crushing can sometimes be observed in the blacks of night scenes, which is probably attributable to overexposure necessary to render the key figures visible. Digital artifacts were nowhere visible, either by way of filtering or sharpening or due to compression.

The Man from Snowy River Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original stereo soundtrack is presented as DTS-HD MA 2.0. Dialogue and sound effects are clearly rendered (unless, of course, your ear is unaccustomed to Australian pronunciation, and then there are English SDH subtitles), and the mix makes good use of the left and right channels to separate individual effects according to the action on screen. The rear channels provide primarily atmosphere, although an advanced decoder such as DPL IIx should be able to extend some of the left and right pans into the rears in a properly calibrated system. Bruce Rowland's famous score, which became a bestselling soundtrack album, plays with very good dynamic range and fidelity and provides the film with the epic sweep that every effective western needs.

The Man from Snowy River Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (SD; 1.85:1; 2:29): The trailer starts out by trying to make the film sound like an Aussie version of Romeo and Juliet. While the two stories share a few overlapping elements, the trailer pushes too hard on them.

The Man from Snowy River Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For anyone used to American westerns, especially those made in the same period as The Man from Snowy River (what might be called "the post-Wild Bunch era"), the film's story may seem to unfold in an odd, even unfocused manner. A large part of the reason, I think, is that American films typically focus on the gunfighters who are either exploiting or protecting townspeople, ranchers, farms or miners, with the latter relegated to a supporting role. (Think of Clint Eastwood's westerns, whether classic, as in Pale Rider, or revisionist, as in Unforgiven.) Sometimes, the "regular" folk are forced to become gunfighters themselves, as happens in Lawrences Kasdan's Silverado, but it's always their role as gunfighters that gives them dramatic heft. In The Man from Snowy River, by contrast, there are no gunfighters, only regular folk. The drama comes from uncontrollable natural forces like the unpredictable mountain weather and the surging brumby mob, and from the equally powerful passions of the human heart. Highly recommended.