I honestly believe this film has really changed me as a person. I’ve learnt a lot from it. Daniel, a talented male dancer is abducted by three hooded women, raped and tortured for twelve days, then dumped in the middle of no where with no clues to his attackers’ identity (other than one girl’s hair colour and some intimately located birthmarks and tattoos). Completely and utterly emotionally damaged, humiliated, and broken, Daniel tries to get his life back in to order, but struggles and eventually makes a huge mistake, in a very threatening and horrifying scene (although as a viewer, I can forgive him). This film is incredibly confronting, and has some horrendous rape scenes. The director wanted viewers to witness this kind of abuse with “fresh eyes” and as “human beings” instead of from either side of a gender divide. She has certainly achieved this. After watching “Last Train to Freo”, where the young lady onboard the train is in constant fear of violence and sexual abuse, this film really makes you think about the issue of sexual violence in a new light. The tables have turned. I’ve personally never seen a man getting raped by a woman, and after witnessing some of the scenes in this movie, they really got to me. I felt really sick and completely terrified. Actually, I still feel really terrified. But also numb. There have been plenty of movies with females getting raped by males. It really is something new to see it the other way around. I feel educated now. Scared shitless, but educated none-the-less. Any rape scene is horrible, and I really hate watching them. But theses scenes felt different emotionally. This is an amazingly powerful movie. But the unconventional context aside, the film is visually very beautiful and captures some great desolate tight urban locations in my home town, Melbourne. This film shows the city in a way that I’ve never looked at it before. The musical score and soundtrack is quite powerful, although I didn’t really appreciate it at the time, as the film had me sucked right in to its world.
This film explores a wide range of issues and themes, the most obvious being sex and power. I still can’t get over the sickening confronting and distressing rape scenes (I wonder if it had the same effect to female members of the audience?). What makes it even more overwhelming, is that Tom Long plays so many lovely nice characters in other films and television series that when watching this film, it’s almost like watching one of your close mates be violated and there’s nothing you can do about it. Any scene where a person is getting hurt normally bothers me a lot. I hate watching anything or anyone getting abused. I really hate needles, as I feel like it’s a violation of the human body. But this film really touched me, as much as some of the most horrific war and murder scenes in other movies. I really consider this film to be a brilliant masterpiece, if only become it affected me in such a major way. Step aside “The Isle” – you’ve been replaced.