Worth: $14.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Veterans, Horses
Intro:
… a real eye-opener.
The military and horse racing… It may seem odd to put those two together, but they individually make for sturdy pillars of Australian culture. The legend of the ANZACs is a foundational element of our national identity, and the Melbourne Cup is celebrated like few other annual events on the calendar. But as this documentary shows, there are deeper connections between the two, and recognising the overlap might be the best thing for both.
Expanding on his 2019 short The Horses, actor turned doco director Nick Barkla once again shines a spotlight on the Thoroughbred and Veteran Welfare Alliance, an organisation that pairs veterans of the Australian Defense Force with former racehorses as a form of animal therapy. Treating both species with equal empathy and (for lack of a better word) humanity, he reinforces that these two groups are going through similar trauma.
The Healing taps into similar emotions as Channing Tatum’s Dog, exuding a rather devastating and quiet tragedy in the notion of finding solace in others… just not other people specifically. Set against the gorgeous Barranca scenery, along with the tempered words of the veterans recalling their frequently nightmarish experiences in the Force, it makes an appeal to reconnect with nature as a means to reconnect with the self.
There’s an occasional misstep in the comparisons between this method and more standard psychiatry, echoing potentially troubling attitudes regarding modern medicine, but when taken as case-by-case (which the film mainly does), it still works as an example of an alternative that could be what some people need. Mental health isn’t one-size-fits-all; frankly, it’d be worrying if it was.
When paired with actual statistics, what Scott Brodie and the TVWA are doing here feels even more essential. Only 1 in 13 horses make it through training, with the vast majority of them ending up in canneries without the right support (as was highlighted in Caro Meldrum-Hanna’s ABC TV exposé on the industry back in 2019), while military veterans over the past two decades have been far likelier to take their own lives than to be lost on the front line. Neither of these facts should be normal.
The Healing is a noble production, showing the effects of trauma by highlighting two separate groups that Australian culture ostensibly admires, while also looking away whenever things get too dark. It’s an easy sell for animal lovers everywhere, but as an example of the flexibility of mental healthcare and the possibility of finding peace in what some may consider unorthodox methods, it’s a real eye-opener.
Screening at the Veterans Film Festival, get your tix here.
THE HEALING – SALES TRAILER from Nick Barkla on Vimeo.
