Burke & Wills has a lot to live up to. Not only the resounding praise it has met in many quarters, but the historical analogy the filmmakers have tied themselves to. The tagline – You don’t have to be stuck in the wilderness to be lost – reinforces the theme. On one hand a calling card for young pups fresh from acting school, Burke & Wills is also a brave and challenging exploration of mental illness. This is unlike any Australian film you’ve ever seen, perhaps any film at all. That was enough for Tribeca to pick it up, which was enough for a significant number of critics to fawn over the production.

Packed with good ideas and made on the back of a credit-card, this small black and white film follows too young men sharing a house. One is a garrulous leech, the other an introverted office-worker. When circumstances shift – Wills gets a job, Burke looses his – the dynamic of their loose friendship also shifts. “I wish I was someone else”, says Wills when waxing lyrical about Spanish sensibilities. Yet it’s the near silent Burke who looks uncomfortable in his body. Both young men are clearly lost in an urban landscape.

Burke & Wills is not a great film. The appalling sound mix is foremost in a litany of technical misdemeanours. Nor do the filmmakers have enough experience to pull off the degree of improvisation they attempt. Too much of this production is tied to film-school sensibilities for audiences to fully connect. Nonetheless, everyone starts somewhere and anyone who’s seen Gus Van Sant’s Mala Noche will appreciate the distinction.

In their favour Zeremes and Torr have had the courage to make a film of unique distinction. Simple wide-shots and a dirty patina lend weight to an unclaimed subject which builds toward a shocking conclusion; it certainly silenced our audience. Their uncompromising story challenges convention and that, on balance, is enough to give Burke & Wills, Zeremes and Torr, a pass-mark. 

// COLIN FRASER