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Overlooked: Get Out Of Town

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The (almost) hits keep coming – here are a couple road trips we didn’t take for Get Out Of Town. – Eds.

Wake in Fright

John Grant (Gary Bond) is dying to take a vacation to Sydney and get out of the godforsaken Outback town where he is a school teacher. But after what was supposed to be a one-night layover in the strange town of Bundanyabba, it looks like he might not make it back to civilization after all. The ‘Yabba’ is at once terrifying and seductive, with its strange gambling games and incessant drinking. Once John gives in and gives himself over to the culture, all reason and logic dissipate as a major mind-fuck takes over, culminating with a terrifying scene of kangaroo hunting and possibly sodomy. Wake in Fright is a testosterone-filled lost weekend (helmed by Donald Pleasence – yikes) that slowly gives way to the inevitable dread-filled hangover at the horrifying realization that things never work out as planned. - Sarah

Ariel

The second film in Aki Kaurismaki’s Proletariat Trilogy follows Taisto Kasurinen, a coal-miner who cashes in and hits the road after his father commits suicide. He drives the snowy roads down to Helsinki in a sweet 50s American convertible, a scarf tied around his head, tries to start a new life, and ends up being framed for a crime. Ariel is classic Kaurismaki – deadpan, depressingly hilarious, starkly beautiful, meandering, but punctuated with some real weird events that go by without the expected dramatic fanfare. The eternal human struggle to come to terms with the absurdity of life is always a given element in Kaurismaki’s work, and Ariel is one of the director’s most finely honed statements on the theme. - Julia


Filed under: Get Out of Town, Overlooked

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