PG | 1h 42min | Western | 1982
Jim Craig’s (Tom Burlinson) widowed father, Henry (Terence Donovan), feels that they can’t get by off of his High Country mountain ranch alone, so the boy must work for a while in the low country. When a stampeding herd of wild horses is on the run and Henry is about to shoot the lead horse, Jim pleads: Why not capture and sell the herd? That’s easily said of a herd that’s free since birth, but hard to do. Henry agrees. Then, the terrifying herd returns, and Henry is killed in the chaos, leaving Jim desolate.
As Jim feels ready to inherit his father’s property, Henry’s friends insist that Jim must earn the right to live in the High Country. Spur (Kirk Douglas), an aged, one-legged miner, still hunting for gold, comforts him with harsh words, “A hard country makes for hard men.” So, Jim ends up herding steer for Spur’s estranged brother, rancher Harrison (also Douglas), and warms to Harrison’s daughter, the fiery, flame-haired Jessica (Sigrid Thornton). Jessica discovers that her late mother, courted by both brothers, married Harrison when he struck it rich before his brother.
Cunning and envious, ranch-hand Curly (Chris Haywood) has it in for young Jim, setting loose Harrison’s prized colt to fault Jim. But when one final brumby chase looms, Jim joins the posse and finds that he needs more than bravado to prove that he has what it takes. Brumbies know the brutal landscape better than the toughest riders.
With Bruce Rowland’s blistering soundtrack and Keith Wagstaff’s astounding camerawork, director George T. Miller paints a riveting portrait of an untamed frontier. No swearing. No gunfight. Just one fleeting fistfight.
But boy, is the chase worth it. Watch wild horses speeding at full tilt, riders in pursuit, on rock, on sand, on grass, over fallen logs, above trenches, through trees, into shoulder-high streams, across plains, up steep ridges, and down sharp cliffs. By the time Miller’s through with you, you’ll be standing in your seat, off your saddle, and held up by your stirrups.
Tethered to Tradition
Inspired by bush-poet A. B. “Banjo” Paterson’s poem of the same name, the literary and mythical symbols the film references are tied so closely to Australia’s tradition that they figure on the country’s $10 bill.
Miller filmed not near the poem’s Snowy River in New South Wales, but near Mansfield, Victoria. His 20-second opening shot is a teaser of the spectacle to come. First, a long shot of an open ground silhouetted against a blue-gray sky. Silence. Then, a pulsing, pounding wave of hooves rolls deafeningly past. As suddenly as they come, they’re gone. Silence.
Both may be Australian, but the Miller who directed this film isn’t Mr. George Miller of “Mad Max” fame. In interviews, the now more famous Mr. Miller humbly joked about the confusion. “A few times I received his mail by mistake. When ‘The Man from Snowy River’ hit the screens, a group of my mum’s friends congratulated me for making such a lovely film. ‘So much better than ‘Mad Max’,” the director said.
With no horse-riding experience, 26-year-old Burlinson won respect for doing his stunts, including the most spectacular one, in a single take. Douglas lights up the screen, as Harrison and Spur, leg, or no leg.
Jessica, swept up in the breathtaking beauty of the mountain country, mutters, “One minute, it’s like Paradise, the next, it’s trying to kill you.” Jim smiles, “Treat the mountains like a high-spirited horse—never take them for granted.” He learns that it takes more than a bullwhip to herd cattle, and that not every rider is a horseman.
Here, both horse and man are metaphors for each other’s heroism and frailty. All it takes to put down a fine horse is a broken leg. So, too, a broken spirit can take down the finest man. For all of Harrison’s domestication, he’s as rogue as a brumby, stampeding through the lives of those he’s supposed to love. For all Spur’s hobbled roaming, his gold-digging feels like a run to regain his spirit, not his leg. And Jim, like a prized colt, must find himself or risk turning brumby.
Miller is saying that a mustang, ever on the move, may seem inexplicable. Sometimes he’s moving, not to keep running, but to find a place where he won’t have to run any longer.
