By Erin Free

Set under the blazing outback sun, Mystery Road opens with a dead body by the side of a highway. It’s a teenage girl, and she’s been cut wide open. Brought in to investigate is Detective Jay Swan (the brilliant Aaron Pedersen), an Aboriginal cop caught between the white and indigenous communities of his rural hometown. As he digs deeper and deeper, Swan raises the quiet ire of enigmatic narcotics cop, Johnno (Hugo Weaving), and starts to get an uneasy feeling about a malevolent farmer (David Field) and his son (Ryan Kwanten). On the homefront, Jay has to deal with the fact that his own teenage daughter might be involved in the young girl’s murder.

Directed with control and slow-burning assurance by Ivan Sen (Beneath Clouds, Toomelah), Mystery Road is the best kind of thriller, maintaining suspense while rolling on a heaving tide of subtext. This towering piece of Australian cinema is about so much (Aboriginal identity, institutionalised racism, the desolation of Australia’s small towns), yet it never becomes strident or unwieldy. It might not have rolled the box office, but Mystery Road stands tall as an instant minor classic.

Aaron Pedersen in Mystery Road
Aaron Pedersen in Mystery Road

Most of the credit must be extended to the gifted Ivan Sen. Though playing with his biggest budget to date on the film, Sen – a noted multi-tasker – still took on multiple duties on the film: writing, directing, cinematography, editing, and music. He was even behind the publicity campaign and advertising imagery. Ivan Sen, however, is no dictatorial behind-the-camera martinet. “He’s very generous in allowing people into the creative design,” Mystery Road producer, David Jowsie, who previously worked with Sen on Toomelah and Dreamland, told FilmInk in 2013 “He’s not afraid. He’s like, ‘Well, give me your best ideas, and they better be bloody good!’ That’s scary, because he’s pretty smart, so you want to have something sensible to say when your opportunity comes! Because of his intelligence, he is in fact very generous in terms of seeking input and allowing for collaboration. That’s great, because when there’s a strong demarcation of roles, it can get a little boring. It’s great to have those creative discussions. Ivan is also a humble person…he’s pretty easy to look up to actually! Sorry to rave about him, but he’s pretty bloody good, you know?”

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