It\u2019s become something of a seasonal tradition for film lovers to try and find the ultimate alternative festive movie. As we prepare for yet another argument about whether or not Die Hard<\/em> is really a Christmas movie, many cineastes have delved deeper into the canon for a December-set narrative that could meet the basic requirements of a Christmas film and offer an artsier alternative to yet another screening of It\u2019s a Wonderful Life<\/em> or Elf<\/em>. The joke, that such works are as antithetical to the holiday as heatwaves are to winter, is half the point. In the hotly competitive subgenre of the darkest Christmas films ever made, standing bloodily over the likes of Morvern Callar<\/em><\/a> and American Psycho<\/em><\/a>, is a Western that would leave even the toughest of stomachs churning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave (who also provided the score with regular collaborator Warren Ellis), 2005’s The Proposition<\/em> is both a striking Western and a stab through the heart of that genre’s oft-crooked mythologizing. Set in Australia in the 1880s, it follows Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), an outlaw who is forced to make a deal with lawmaker Captain Morris Stanley (Ray Winstone). Charlie must locate his sadistic older brother Arthur (Danny Huston), leader of the Burns gang, and kill him in nine days. If he doesn’t, the Captain will hang their mentally disabled brother Mike (Richard Wilson).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riding in search of Arthur, Charlie is forced to confront the obscene violence inflicted upon the land that people like him have begun to colonize. The local Aboriginal people have been exploited and murdered en masse by the white settlers. Captain Stanley is part of a concerted effort to \u201ccivilize\u201d this new land, which mostly means endless slaughter and genocide. Charlie’s old gang are no innocents in this game, as he stumbles across the burning remains of a home destroyed by the Burns gang. Rape is as much a tool of destruction and colonialism as the gun, and no woman is safe from it. It\u2019s ceaseless to the point of tedious, but never any less shocking. In one scene, a character is sentenced to a hundred lashes for a crime he didn\u2019t commit, and the ensuing punishment is horrific, but even the bloodthirsty spectators get bored by the sheer overkill of such a display. For the settlers, the hell they\u2019ve created is one that is non-discriminating in its wrath, but it\u2019s still the marginalized who suffer the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The anti-Western cinematic genre, a consciously critical approach to the romantic ideas of Manifest Destiny and John Wayne, is almost as old as the classic Western. Placing that into the context of Australian history, as well as its own cinema, offers something that makes all too much sense. The Outback is already the perfect location for such a story, so baking hot and inescapable in its endless sand and rocks. Across every cave, there is another skeleton to be found, literal or otherwise. Hillcoat borrows heavily from Peckinpah with his view of a world painted red with bloodshed but his cultural lens is uniquely Australian. The subjugation of the Aboriginal population was a concerted effort to erase them from existence, and it was one that many settlers did with glee. Some were more ambivalent, like our mostly silent \u201chero\u201d Charlie, but still they participated. None of the white characters learn any lessons by the film\u2019s end. They don\u2019t have dramatic emotional arcs or come-to-Jesus moments as they confront the system they\u2019ve found themselves trapped by; those who aren\u2019t dead are traumatized but not regretful enough to change their ways. As history showed, they continued to spill blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pure farce of colonialism is at the forefront of Hillcoat and Cave’s vision. It’s effective, yes, but no less shoddy in its theatricalities. Captain Stanley is told to bring order and decency to the desert, a task he fulfills while dressed to the nines in a heavy coat that leaves him sweating like a sinner in church. His wife Martha (Emily Watson), isolated from her old life and too afraid to venture far from their home, tries to recreate an English Christmas, complete patches of artificial snow. It offers an unforgiving contrast, between the promise of Christmas\u2019s celebration of goodwill to all men and the actions of the Christians to build a so-called nation. \u201cI will civilize this place,\u201d declares one settler. In practice, that means killing Indigenous people who don\u2019t fit their definition of such a nonsense term. Such is how a country is made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amid this massacre, the Captain and his wife sit down to celebrate Christmas. Their tree, imported from halfway around the world, glistens with decorations. The turkey dinner looks delicious. But it’s all as fake as the snow that lines the red dusty ground. The sheen of decorum and festive cheer is a poor disguise for the shriveled black heart at the center of The Proposition<\/em> and the history it depicts. It might not make for the happiest movie experience this December, but it\u2019d certainly be the most honest.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Proposition” is streaming on Amazon Prime<\/a>, Peacock<\/a>, Kanopy<\/a>, and several ad-based services<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/proposition2-1024x650.jpg\")
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