Main Crew: prod, Daniel Scharf, Ian Pringle; dir, Geoffrey Wright; writ, Geoffrey Wright; dop, Ron Hagen; ed, Bill Murphy; mus, John Clifford White; prod d, Steven Jones-Evans; cos, Anna Borghesi.
The release of Geoffrey Wright's violent, social realist work, Romper Stomper, instantly raised questions regarding violence both within our society and on the screen. The violence that permeates Romper Stomper, however, carries with it strong moral reasoning. In many ways, Wright has portrayed the urban wars in a narrative style reminiscent of a number of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. As such, themes revolving around loyalty and the family resonate powerfully throughout the film, intertwined as poetically and seamlessly as those present in Macbeth.
Wright's debut directorial effort, also penned by Wright, presents a remarkably poignant character study of a group of Neo-Nazi social outcasts. Their situation, as a struggling minority group fighting for freedom from racial impurity, is indicative of the struggle that Australian aborigines face every day.
Interestingly, Wright's portrayal of this group appears, in many ways, to be a study of the obstacles facing the Aborigines in the 1990s. If so, his focus on a group that most audiences would see as inherently bad, could be a clever façade that shrouds the essential subject matter in order to protect him from critical backlash from indigenous groups. In any case, Hando and his accomplices could be seen as representatives of any minority grouping — perceived by others as misguided, attention-seeking outcasts.
Hando (Russell Crowe, in a spectacularly powerful performance) led his group of nationalists in the war to reclaim land that they believe they are entitled to. This is symbolic of the Aborigines' battle to reclaim Australian soil. Just as the indigenous people of Australia are grossly outnumbered, and their numbers diminishing, Hando's Nazi group was similarly so, and both groups, as portrayed by the mass media, can be linked to alcoholism and social isolation as side effects of their fighting a losing battle. In fact, the riveting conclusion to the film, strengthened by the ironic appearance of a number of Asian tourists at Hando's death scene, is indicative of the fact that while the jingoistic battle has been lost, the survivors came to the realisation that harmony could only be achieved through dissemination with other cultures.
