The Hunter

A film set in Tasmania. Martin is a hunter working for a company. His task is defined: find an animal on the island thought to have died out years ago, kill it and bring back a specimen. What the company wants is not the animal but the genetic information it carries. He goes to the island under a false identity. He lodges with a family: the woman sleeps on pills, her husband has disappeared and two small children are on their own. There is tension in the region. The forestry company and the environmentalists are set against each other; the townspeople fear for their work and look at anyone from outside with suspicion. Martin goes up the mountain. He stays alone for days, setting traps, following tracks and waiting. Those sections proceed almost in silence. Down below his tie to the house grows stronger. He becomes close to the children and starts looking for the missing man as well. What the film asks is the distance between duty and conscience, and what it means to kill the last of something. The source is Julia Leigh's novel. Willem Dafoe plays Martin, Frances O'Connor the woman and Sam Neill the local contact. Daniel Nettheim directed. It was shot in the mountain country of Tasmania. A strong production for anyone who likes slow tension and narratives set in wild country. For a viewer expecting pace, the film leans on long silences.