For many, Wake In Fright is the greatest Australian film ever made. At the very least, it's a high-point of the Australian film industry revival of the early 1970s. In director Ted Kotcheff's hands Kenneth Cook's savage novel becomes a sweat-blurred cinematic vision of savage Australian masculinity, as bush school teacher John Grant (Gary Bond) is trapped by the turn of a two-up coin in the outback mining city of Bundanyabba. All John wants to do is get to Sydney and the arms of his girlfriend. But led on by the local copper (Chips Rafferty) and his other new best mates (including Jack Thompson and Donald Pleasence) the 'Yabba becomes an inescapable, self-made hell of beer, dust and violence. Nominated for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival in 1971, Wake in Fright has been all but impossible to see for many years. After a decades-long search for the original negatives it's been restored by the NFSA in partnership with The Wake in Fright Trust and Atlab/Deluxe Australia, and acclaimed all over again at the recent Cannes 2009 Classics program and Sydney Film Festival. Thanks to the fine folk of Arc we've got five double passes to give away to one of these sessions: Saturday July 11 at 4.30 and 7pm, Sunday July 12 at 4.30pm. To win, tell us about the fright of your life.
