Jen­nifer Kent: ​‘This is the sto­ry that has played out around the world’

Jen­nifer Kent doesn’t think in terms of genre, even if every­one decid­ed her 2014 sleep­er hit The Babadook was a hor­ror film on her behalf. Instead, a film is a film is a film to her – though she says The Nightin­gale, if you had to label it, is a myth about a hor­rif­ic world. Her har­row­ing tale of sys­tem­at­ic abuse against women and indige­nous peo­ple in Aus­tralia is a bloody, bruis­ing and utter­ly unre­lent­ing account of a shame­ful his­to­ry still bare­ly acknowl­edged by those in power.

LWLies: You filmed The Nightin­gale on loca­tion in Tas­ma­nia, right?

Kent: Yeah, we were adamant we had to, even though it prob­a­bly cost us almost twice as much as it would have oth­er­wise. Because it’s an island about the size of Den­mark, you have to bring every­thing over. I think visu­al­ly Tas­ma­nia doesn’t look like any­where else in Aus­tralia, and that was impor­tant. And also, this is where all this stuff hap­pened, it felt like we couldn’t play that out any­where else. It need­ed to be on the land where it occurred.

Did you learn any­thing about the treat­ment of indige­nous Aus­tralians in school?

I learnt noth­ing. I real­ly didn’t become aware of it until my ear­ly twen­ties when I trav­elled up north to Cairns and met Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple. Now it real­ly is such an hon­our to have any con­tact with their cul­ture, because I see it as real­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed and in many ways a supe­ri­or cul­ture to the one that invad­ed it. But this is the sto­ry that has played out around the world. These cul­tures that are very bal­anced and more in tune with nature, have a much more sub­tle way of mov­ing through the world, get blast­ed by this real­ly over-mas­culinised, oppos­ing force. It’s the great tragedy of that era, and the effects of it are still very present.

Australia’s colo­nial past still feels like some­thing the gov­ern­ment – and to some extent the coun­try – is reluc­tant to deal with.

Def­i­nite­ly. The Nightin­gale pre­miered at Sun­dance on Aus­tralia Day, which some of us call Inva­sion Day. The gov­ern­ment refus­es to move Aus­tralia Day from the date that it’s on, which coin­cides with the anniver­sary of a well-known mas­sacre of indige­nous Aus­tralians. And why? No rea­son, just stub­born­ness. I think it’s the same men­tal­i­ty that cre­at­ed colo­nial­ism. But we screened this film in South Aus­tralia, and the audi­ence had such a deep response to it. I was quite wor­ried about their reac­tion. Say­ing things like ​‘We did this,’ and, ​‘We need to look at it and look at the pain caused’. I was so proud of that audience.

How do you help to tell this very real sto­ry while also being con­scious of who the sto­ry real­ly belongs to?

As a priv­i­leged white woman, I was keen­ly aware of this, and almost didn’t make the film because I didn’t feel enti­tled to tell the sto­ry. I’ve seen it in my coun­try over and over again – white film­mak­ers not con­sult­ing Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple about their sto­ries. It’s like colo­nial­ism all over again, rob­bing them of their voice. Before I even wrote a draft or had a treat­ment, I knew I couldn’t tell this sto­ry unless I had an equal part­ner – an Abo­rig­i­nal elder or con­sul­tant. And we came across Uncle Jim Everett who was there through­out. Talk­ing with him but also doing an enor­mous amount of research, search­ing through all this stuff writ­ten by ​“white vic­tors”. Even though Bil­ly and Clare are fic­tion­al char­ac­ters, the world of the film is real. I’m not mak­ing up this vio­lence to pro­voke peo­ple unnec­es­sar­i­ly. This hap­pened in my coun­try, and if I don’t speak about it then I can’t make a film in that era.

A lot of peo­ple have walked out of the film, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing some of the more bru­tal scenes. How do you make peo­ple pay attention?

Well I think you can’t. My job as a writer and then as direc­tor is real­ly to serve the sto­ry and to tell it as pure­ly and as hon­est­ly as I can – that’s what I always endeav­our to do. Then what it trig­gers in an audi­ence, or what it pro­vokes, I can’t be respon­si­ble for that. It would be like paint­ing a paint­ing, putting it on a wall, and hav­ing to please every­one whose eyes come across it. It’s just not pos­si­ble. But when I’m present and some­one is real­ly angry after see­ing the film, it is hard, because the film is my baby and I don’t want some­one to kick my baby in the teeth. And also I feel a lot of love in the film. There is vio­lence, but I don’t focus on that, I focus on the love. That was my rea­son for telling the story.

The Nightin­gale is released 29 Novem­ber. Read the LWLies Rec­om­mends review.