Sydney Film Festival Focus: 'Shotgun Stories'

Dir. Jeff Nichols, starring Michael Shannon, Douglas Ligon, Barlow Jacobs, Glenda Pannell, Lynnsee Provence…

Shotgun Stories is the debut feature from Arkansas native Jeff Nichols. This exceptional film centres around two groups of half brothers and follows them through the violent and traumatic feud that breaks out between them following their father’s funeral. Boy (Douglas Ligon), Son (Michael Shannon) and Kid (Barlow Jacobs) are the unwanted children, abandoned by their father and bought up by a hateful mother. When their father dies, the three brothers show up to the funeral much to the aggravation of their father’s other children. Son speaks ill of his father and spits on his grave. Thus, the tension that exists between the two families of half brothers, who shared a father and nothing else, becomes a violent explosion of hate and blame.

The film is told from the perspectives of Son, Boy and Kid. Son Hayes is the leader of the brothers and takes on a paternal role. All three brothers look out for each other and rely on a strong unspoken love which binds them together. The fact that their relationship is so deep and yet requires no words is indicative of the film itself. By relying strongly on a sense of place, this film is not only a family saga but also a portrayal of men in America’s south. Often in film these kinds of men become caricatures, hard drinking, rough and not too bright. Shotgun Stories seeks to explore more of the reality of a hard blue collar southern existence. It manages to bring into focus the ways in which these men are a product of their environment and are not to be dismissed as a ‘type’ but seen as real people struggling with their place in the world. That the film succeeds in making these men into real and recognizable people is partly due to the great script and direction by Nichols and is in equal measure due to the moving performances given by the remarkably talented cast.

The long deserted streets of the town in which the story takes place focuses attention on the loneliness inherent in the way people interact within the film. The emptiness of the town prompts one of the brothers to note that they seem like the only people in the town and it feels like they own it. "If I owned this town, I’d sell it" replies another of the brothers. The comment is both funny and heartbreaking because you get the sense that they will never leave. Son, Boy and Kid are tied to this place by more than just circumstance. They are part of the landscape – the wide spaces and male dominated law of the land is the world that they know and understand.

These characters are overcome with the need for revenge in the blood war which breaks out between the two families. However, Nichols succeeds in subverting our expectations in the way in which we connect with these characters who in another film may have been portrayed as one-dimensional killers. Nichols has said he wanted to re-evaluate the nature of revenge in cinema – instead of wanting the protagonists to succeed in their quest for vengeance, you are hoping that they will walk away and end the vicious cycle in which they are caught. You constantly hope that they will rebel against what is expected of them and give themselves a chance at survival.

This is a personal and emotional film which, while it has only been shown at four festivals so far, deserves widespread distribution. Do yourself a favor and track down this movie because it will affect you in a way that only truly great cinema does. When I walked out of the film I was surprised to find myself in the middle of rainy Sydney when I had been so caught up in the lives of the men who inhabit the sun-drenched landscape of the American south.

Shotgun Stories premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and is screening as part of the ‘World Views’ Strand at the Sydney Film Festival. Jeff Nichols was recently been awarded the New American Cinema Award at the Seattle Film Festival.