Wake in Fright Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		2.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		2.5

Wake in Fright Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov May 7, 2014

Ted Kotcheff's "Wake in Fright" (1970) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include a new trailer for the film; audio commentary with director Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley; video interview with the Canadian director; rare behind the scenes footage; and more. The release also arrives with an illustrated booklet featuring writing on the film, its restoration, rare imagery, and more. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

The schoolteacher

The man protagonist in Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright is a young schoolteacher who has been forced to accept a position in a tiny, isolated community deep in the Australian Outback. After a year of hard work, John Grant (Gary Bond, TV's Great Expectations) is heading back to Sydney to celebrate Christmas with his girlfriend.

But on the way to Sydney, Grant stops off in Bundanyabba, a wild mining town where people love to eat, drink, and gamble. He is not in a mood to party, but the local constable (Chips Rafferty, Massacre Hill, The Sundowners) buys him a couple of beers and a steak and then shows him the area’s popular gambling den. Rather reluctantly, Grant bets some of his money and wins big. Then he bets again and loses everything, including his traveling money.

On the following morning, Grant misses his flight and meets Tim Hynes (Al Thomas, Jenny), a friendly and seemingly financially secure drunkard, who offers him a room in his large mansion. Grant also befriends Hynes' sexually frustrated wife (Sylvia Kay, TV's Just Good Friends), who decides to have a bit of fun with him before he heads back to civilization.

Shortly after, a couple of Hynes' best buddies take Grant on a 'hunting trip' -- for a few hours, the men kill as many kangaroos as they can track down and then begin fighting amongst themselves. However, while they are ‘having fun’, the seriously inebriated Grant collapses, allowing Doc Tydon (Donald Pleasence, Race for the Yankee Zephyr), once a highly respected physician, to have has his way with him.

The unplanned lovemaking experience convinces Grant that he can reach Sydney alone and without money. He gets to the next town, where a stranger agrees to drive him further down the road. However, exhausted and dehydrated, Grant falls asleep in the back of his truck -- and then wakes up when the man stops in front of Bundanyabba’s City Hall.

Based on the novel by Kenneth Cook, Wake in Fright is an uncompromising, brutal film that once seen cannot be forgotten. In 1971, it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or Award, but following mixed reviews at home and only one airing on commercial television, it quickly disappeared. Nearly four decades later, following an extensive digital restoration, it returned to Cannes and was reintroduced in the Classics section.

The brutality that flourishes before Kotcheff's camera makes large portions of Wake in Fright quite difficult to endure. The raw hunting footage, in particular, is deeply unsettling. In a video interview recorded after the digital restoration was completed, Kotcheff clarified that he shot the footage while following real hunters doing their jobs. However, Anthony Buckley’s editing is so effective, it easily creates the impression that Kotcheff’s camera was in the company of deranged men who were in fact killing the animals for fun.

Evan Jones’ screenplay is loaded with plain, often quite rough words and statements, just like the men who utter them. There are a few splashes of humor, but the odd, unexpected contrasts they create make the brutality appear even more authentic.

The entire cast is enormously impressive. Bond looks genuinely frustrated and lost, and in the end, completely delusional. Pleasence plays a madman who has decided to drink himself to death, and it certainly looks like he does everything he possibly can to get the job done. Thomas is superb as the kooky drunkard. Rafferty, one of Australia's all-time greatest actors, is unforgettable as the aggressive constable.

Wake in Fright Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment.

I was hoping that this release would use a high-definition transfer struck from a different master, not the one Drafthouse Films and Madman Entertainment accessed when they prepared their Blu-ray releases of Wake in Fright for the U.S. and Australian markets. Most unfortunately, this isn't the case.

There are traces of moderate to strong filtering corrections throughout the entire film. Unsurprisingly, during close-ups and large panoramic shots, detail is seriously compromised. During many sequences colors and contrast also collapse, especially when light is restricted, and large blocks of gray become prominent (see screencapture #14). Furthermore, image depth and clarity are enormously problematic. In fact, even close-ups with plenty of natural light look incredibly flat (see screencapture #1) -- the limitations of the original photography are clearly further exacerbated by various digital corrections. The filtering has also affected color balance and shadow definition. As a result, the entire film has a very distracting, flat digital look. The only good news here is that debris, specks, cuts, and damage marks have been carefully removed. It is obvious that different stabilization enhancements have been applied as well. All in all, while Eureka Entertainment's technical presentation of Wake in Fright is good, the digital restoration their release uses as a foundation is indeed very problematic. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

Wake in Fright Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 2.0. For the record, Eureka Entertainment have provided optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature.

There are various dynamic and clarity fluctuations, but they are inherited. To be perfectly clear, the film has a very organic sound design -- because of the manner in which different sequences were shot (see the raw hunting footage) some fluctuations have been retained. The dialog is always stable and easy to follow. More importantly, there are no audio dropouts or high-frequency distortions to report in this review. Background hiss has been eliminated as well.

Wake in Fright Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - original trailer for the 2009 restoration of Wake in Fright. Music only. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Outback TV Spot - original TV spot for Wake in Fright. In English, not subtitled. (1 min).

• 7:30 Report - this short video piece focuses on the production history of Wake in Fright and its controversial message. It features clips from archival interviews and new interviews with the people responsible for the film's digital restoration. In English, not subtitled. (7 min).

• Ted Kotcheff Interview - in this video interview, the acclaimed Canadian director discusses the film's production history, its initial reception at the Cannes Film Festival and in Australia, the controversial hunting footage, the restoration of the film, etc. In English, not subtitled. (24 min).

• Who Needs Art? - the archival footage presented here was shot during the filming of Wake in Fright. Portion of the footage is dedicated to some of the challenges the local film industry was facing during the early '70s. In English, not subtitled. (6 min).

• Chips Rafferty Obituary - presented here are short clips from archival interviews with Chips Rafferty (Wake in Fright was his final film) and Australian director Ken G. Hall, who made a number of films with the iconic actor. In English, not subtitled. (4 min).

• Commentary - this audio commentary with director Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley initially appeared on the Australian home video releases of Wake in Fright. The gentlemen spend a great deal of time explaining how and where the film was shot, and discuss Chips Rafferty's final role (the late actor apparently insisted on drinking real beer while key sequences from the film were shot), some of the initial reactions to the film's script, the digital restoration, etc.).

• Booklet - 48-page illustrated booklet featuring: "Breaking Badland" by Adrian Martin (2014), "Dreaming of the Devil" by Peter Galvin (2009), "Rediscovering a Classic" by Meg Labrum (2009), "Restoring Wake in Fright" by Graham Shirley (2009), "On the Kangeroo Hunt" by Ted Kotcheff (2012), and "Lost & Found" by Anthony Buckley (2009).

Wake in Fright Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The digital restoration of director Ted Kotcheff's classic film Wake in Fright is very problematic. In fact, the final result is every bit as frustrating as the recent presentations of Marcel Carne's Children of Paradise and Jacques Demy's Lola. Naturally, even though the film has been virtually impossible to see for years, my advice to you is to consider renting Eureka Entertainment's Blu-ray release. See if you can tolerate the problematic presentation, and then decide whether you want to own a copy of the film.