Hotel Coolgardie

Pete Gleeson's 2016 Australian documentary follows two Finnish backpackers sent to work as barmaids at the only pub in a remote mining town. Both need money and have no other options in the way work is found. The running of the pub is the subject. Every three months new women arrive and the regulars greet them as fresh meat; harassment continues as ordinary behaviour and nobody treats it as a problem. The camera intervenes in no scene. The documentary's ethical position was debated. The director records what happens but does not stop it; some critics called that witness and others called it complicity. The film does not close the question and leaves it open in a way designed to unsettle. Who it's for: those able to watch observational documentary. Who it's not for: viewers who need to avoid scenes of sexual harassment; the documentary shows them without a cut.