American Cinematographer - July 2014 - 70
A Road
Through
Ruin
Natasha Braier, ADF lends a
gritty look to The Rover, a
hard-hitting Australian drama set
in a bleak future.
By Patricia Thomson
*|*
T
he Rover isn't a film that's easily pigeonholed. It's not an
action flick, though it does have a car chase and bursts of
violence. It's not sci-fi, though it's set in the future, 10
years after an economic collapse. It's not a Western,
though it has a lawless populace and frames Australia's barren
outback in widescreen. It's partially character-driven, but its
title character, Eric (Guy Pearce), is as tight-lipped as any
shell-shocked survivor.
"I wanted to make a movie that people hadn't seen
before, that didn't sit comfortably within any kind of genre,"
says Australian writer/director David Michôd about his
second feature, following Animal Kingdom [AC Oct. '10]. "I
remember moments of exhilaration where I'd walk away from
the monitor thinking, 'I don't know what it is we're making
here, but it excites the hell out of me.'"
"That's what attracted me to the project," says
Argentinean director of photography Natasha Braier, ADF. "I
70
July 2014
could see this was not about narration, but a mood piece."
That The Rover ignores by-the-book filmmaking is
evident from the start. We're inside a parked car observing
Eric in profile, lost in thought. Through the window, we see a
ramshackle diner and a featureless landscape coated with dust.
The shot runs at length (one of their "Béla Tarr shots," as the
filmmakers dubbed them), but nothing happens beyond the
buzzing of flies. Finally, Eric gets out of the car and walks
across the gravel toward the building.
Not many filmmakers would risk such a quiet opening.
"For me, it was a powerful and simple way of communicating
what the experience of being out there was actually like -
stillness and emptiness and heat and solitude," says Michôd.
The world of The Rover is a stark place. Society has
devolved following a worldwide economic collapse. Physical
and social structures are still in place, but just barely. Water is
scarce. Electricity comes from individual generators. Gas is
sold from storefronts in liter containers. The tattered
remnants of a military force ineffectually pursue the hustlers
and criminals drawn to the sputtering economy around
Australia's pit mines.
Once a farmer, Eric is now a drifter. After the film's
opening, he enters a rundown diner and sits alone at the bar.
Suddenly, through a window, we see a pickup truck somersault and crash. On the run from a botched crime, its occupants jump out and steal Eric's car, leaving their partner Rey
(Robert Pattinson) for dead. Soon, Eric and Rey form an
uneasy alliance and hit the road in pursuit of the stolen car,
American Cinematographer
American Cinematographer - July 2014
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - July 2014
Contents
American Cinematographer - July 2014 - Cover1
American Cinematographer - July 2014 - Cover2
American Cinematographer - July 2014 - 1
American Cinematographer - July 2014 - 2
American Cinematographer - July 2014 - Contents
American Cinematographer - July 2014 - 4
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