The opening imagery of Mark Leonard Winter‘s The Rooster is a nightmarish depiction of a body swinging in the wind. It suggests a darker film than what transpires over the following 101 minutes, even though Winter’s script does indeed indulge in devastating themes.
At the centre of The Rooster is Dan (Phoenix Raei, leaving no emotion unturned), a country cop, whose aforementioned haunted dreams set a particular tone. We learn the swinging body is that of a childhood friend of Dan’s, and in trying to navigate the anguish and guilt he has surrounding this death, Dan tails it into the forest, hoping to leave society behind.
It’s here in the forest that Dan meets “Hermit” (Hugo Weaving, powerful), a violently loud fiend of sorts whose initially not welcome to Dan’s presence; “This is my forest”, Hermit so aggressively tells him. Of course, given their opposing dynamic, we know the two will find something of a common ground, and soon the conversation (and booze) flows between them. It’s through their conversations that Winter’s script flirts with an almost-uncomfortable mentality of humour, all the while serving as a meditation on masculinity.
Where The Rooster travels is never guaranteed, and audiences hoping for resolution may not necessarily be satiated. Winter’s pacing feels deliberate, and the discomfort some may feel is clearly intentional as both Raei and Weaving play off each other with an unpredictable energy. Both men are broken, and the film dedicates a lot of its time to telling dialogue over specific visuals – despite what The Rooster first presents us with – leaving little space to escape the fragile thematic at its core.
The Rooster is the type of film that’s best entered knowing as little as possible. It doesn’t necessarily prove to be an uplifting experience, but the conversations it will hopefully generate offset such a temperament. And, if nothing else, it’s a further showcase for the intoxicating experimentation Weaving dares to play with as one of his generation’s finest character actors.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Rooster is now screening in Australian theatres.
