In A Savage Land
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''In a Savage Land'' is a 1999 Australian film set in New Guinea just prior to and during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. It won the 2000
ARIA Music Award The Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (commonly known informally as ARIA Music Awards, ARIA Awards, or simply the ARIAs) is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Austra ...
for Best Original Soundtrack.


Story

The film opens in pre-1938 Adelaide, where Phillip Spence (Donovan) is lecturing a graduate class in anthropology. He hopes to enlarge on the work of
Malinowski Malinowski (Polish pronunciation: ; feminine: Malinowska; plural: Malinowscy) is a surname of Polish-language origin. It is related to the following surnames: People * Agnieszka Malinowska, Polish mathematician * (born 1954), Polish Army gene ...
with a multi-year field study of a Trobriand Island community, whose
matrilineal Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...
culture encourages pre-marital sex. He needs his star student Evelyn, who has a gift for languages, to accompany him and asks her to marry him — despite his gauche approach she acquiesces. They hear on the radio of the declaration of war with Germany. They reach the island, where traders exchange trinkets (a mouth organ for instance) for pearls. They are introduced to Mick Carpenter (Sewell), a
free-diver Freediving, free-diving, free diving, breath-hold diving, or skin diving is a form of underwater diving that relies on breath-holding until resurfacing rather than the use of breathing apparatus such as scuba gear. Besides the limits of breath-h ...
who goes
pearl hunting Pearl hunting, also known as pearling, is the activity of recovering pearls from wild molluscs, usually oysters or mussels, in the sea or freshwater. Pearl hunting was prevalent in the Persian Gulf region and Japan for thousands of years. On the ...
with the natives. He predicts she will not stay a year; she wagers her father's watch against one of his pearls to the contrary. Phillip has an argument with the traders, who are profiting from the natives' poor bargaining position; the trader questions whether he expects an academic promotion on the back of his research and how much he is paying his subjects. Evelyn picks a fight with the Rev. MacGregor (
John Howard John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
), who is urging them to abandon their funeral rituals for burial in the Christian cemetery, and wants the women to cover their breasts. She becomes proficient at the language, and in conversation with the women learns of their conception myth: because recreational sex is a way of life they do not see pregnancy as an occasional outcome. She has an argument with her husband; he deprecates her ambitions as a researcher on the grounds of his academic credentials and her inferior status as a female student. He refuses her permission to use the camera, as she "might break it". And he tells her to stop talking to the women, being a departure from accepted research methodology. She does take the camera, and captures a couple copulating in a hidden grotto; she returns the camera to her furious husband; "see I didn't break it" she pouts. But the photograph is stolen and creates a crisis — it turns out the girl was promised to a prominent tribesman; now he doesn't want her. The girl leaps to her death from a tall coconut tree; the traditional form of suicide. Evelyn is distraught, seeing herself as a impediment to her husband's work, and pays Carpenter to take her to a neighbouring island to conduct her own research among the island's inhabitants, a belligerent
patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...
tribe who show her no respect once Carpenter has left. Her husband has an unhappy time with her gone: he is assaulted by the woman, humiliated and ostracized. Evelyn is called back as he is dying from
dysentery Dysentery (UK pronunciation: , US: ), historically known as the bloody flux, is a type of gastroenteritis that results in bloody diarrhea. Other symptoms may include fever, abdominal pain, and a feeling of incomplete defecation. Complications ...
. She buries him native fashion; she removes her clothing and goes through the widow's ritual: her head is shaved, she is blackened all over with mud and shuts herself in a cage, preparing to starve herself to death. Carpenter brings her water and tries to feed and exercise her. Weeks pass and she leaves the cage; Carpenter nurses her back to health and they fall in love. They hear on the radio of the
attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
and are warned of imminent Japanese encroachment. Japanese bombers shower them with leaflets, then a small party of Japanese soldiers lands, and the Europeans follow the pre-arranged moonlight evacuation. Carpenter makes as if to leave, then doubles back to remain as a
coast watcher The Coastwatchers, also known as the Coast Watch Organisation, Combined Field Intelligence Service or Section C, Allied Intelligence Bureau, were Allied military intelligence operatives stationed on remote Pacific islands during World War II ...
— executed as a spy if caught. It is around 1950. Evelyn had made a pilgrimage to the island, retrieved her notebooks, and asked after Carpenter, but heard only rumors of his death. Her book ''In a Savage Land'' is published, and at a book signing someone slips a package onto the table. It contains Carpenter's perfect pearl — she rushes out and eventually finds him, one leg missing but alive. The film ends with a flashback to the idyllic moment when he told her of the legend that a gold-lipped oyster predicted a lasting relationship.


Concept and production

The idea behind the film originated in some photographs Bennett found in a trunk left by his father, who was an Australian
war photographer ''War Photographer'' is a documentary by Christian Frei about the photographer James Nachtwey. As well as telling the story of an iconic man in the field of war photography, the film addresses the broader scope of ideas common to all those inv ...
in the area in the 1940s. He read the work of Bronislaw Malinowski in the
Trobriand Islands The Trobriand Islands are a archipelago of coral atolls off the east coast of New Guinea. They are part of the nation of Papua New Guinea and are in Milne Bay Province. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main isla ...
and imagined his protagonists building on her work. The story was written by Bennett and his wife Jennifer; Dr Wojciech Dabrowski advised on anthropological aspects of the story and Neil McDonald and Hank Nelson of
ANU Anu ( akk, , from wikt:𒀭#Sumerian, 𒀭 ''an'' “Sky”, “Heaven”) or Anum, originally An ( sux, ), was the sky father, divine personification of the sky, king of the gods, and ancestor of many of the list of Mesopotamian deities, dei ...
helped with historical research.From closing credits, ''In a Savage Land'' (1999) Bennett decided to shoot the film on location on the Trobriands, using hundreds of locals as
extra Extra or Xtra may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Film * ''The Extra'' (1962 film), a Mexican film * ''The Extra'' (2005 film), an Australian film Literature * ''Extra'' (newspaper), a Brazilian newspaper * ''Extra!'', an American me ...
s, which lent it near- documentary authenticity but at great expense. With a budget of around $10 million, it was in 1999 the most expensive Australian film to date. The film was shot over six weeks in Papua New Guinea and two weeks in Adelaide.


References


External links

* *
''In a Savage Land''
at
Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

''In a Savage Land''
at Oz Movies
''In a Savage Land''
at ''Urban Cinefile'' {{Bill Bennett 1999 films 1990s adventure films ARIA Award-winning albums Australian adventure drama films Films set in Papua New Guinea Films shot in Papua New Guinea Films shot in Adelaide Films directed by Bill Bennett 1990s English-language films