But (with one or two exceptions) the side characters aren’t particularly engaging, and after a while the drama feels a little by-the-numbers. This isn’t a criticism: it’s part of the format, and guessing who is part of the fun. There’s a point, relatively early in the runtime (this review encapsulates all six episodes) where it becomes clear the culprit or culprits must be drawn from a reasonably small pool of characters. I’m not sure he’s completely convincing as a detective, though it’s an engaging performance. All the while Fimmel’s weird, somnambulant energy beams in from another reality, as if caught between consciousness and sleep. Other cast members include Molly Fatnowna as the younger version of Hazel, and Ziggy Ramo (who co-wrote the score) as Ezekiel, an enigmatic worker visiting from Vanuatu. The cast are generally impressive but the performances are tonally imbalanced, with Blackman-Corowa bringing a fair degree of gravitas as Isabel but Bani overacting as her evangelical dad. I wish that intensity was sustained and there were more visual touches along these lines, particularly as the show moves forward – because the tension drops. Jemmason Power as Hazel and Eden Cassady as Kalana. The ash falling in Black Snow is more like the blain rain from The Last Wave or the falling frogs in Magnolia, elevating mood and marking a crossing point, with the drama entering a new level of intensity. Things falling from the sky is a great way to ratchet up atmospheric intensity or signal a change of emotions: rain of course being the most common, often used to heighten drama, evoke melancholia or symbolise cleansing and rebirth. The second episode contains a title drop, with Isabel looking up at a roof window, where ashes from burning sugar cane fall like a surreal rain. In the great Australian tradition of unhelpful cops (from Chips Rafferty in Wake in Fright to Richard Roxburgh in Blue Murder), the sarg dismisses this message as “teenage angst” – before important revelations make it clear that Isabel’s killer is from Ashford and is not, as he has long believed, an outsider. Isabel provides an eerie voice from the grave: “In 2019 I predict Ashford will still be full of predators disguised as friends,” she has written, discussing people who “feed on suffering” and pledging to expose them “if they don’t kill me first”. To mark the local school’s 100-year anniversary, the time capsule ceremony welcomes former students to retrieve old items (an audio cassette here, a VHS copy of Thelma & Louise there) and share their schoolyard predictions for the future. Isabel’s death sent ripples through the town’s South Sea Islander community, allowing the series to open up a space to explore Australia’s treatment and exploitation of migrants. Isabel’s sister Hazel (Jemmason Power) is reluctant to have the past dredged up, with her evangelical Christian family – including their pastor father Joe (Jimi Bani) – still struggling with Isabel’s murder, and complex feelings resurfacing after the capsule’s unveiling. Upon arrival at the cop shop in the town of Ashford, the local senior sergeant (played by the under-used Kym Gyngell) delivers him a bloody-strayan greeting: “So, you’re the finger up my arsehole.” But he is mostly obliging. This moment adds another kind of mystery: what the hell is wrong with this guy? Without that scene, Cormack’s weary demeanour and thousand-yard stare would be interpreted as just another detective who’s lethargic and/or overworked with it, we wonder whether there’s something untoward or perverse going on.Ĭormack’s boss agrees to assign him to the case, on the proviso he won’t complain about the Queensland heat – signposting the show as belonging to a genre I call the “bugger me dead, it’s hot” action/thriller (Stan delivered a great one last year in The Tourist). But things get weird when he does an Edward Norton from Flight Club, asking a bloke to punch him in the face and “put your bloody hips into it”. After jumping forward in time, Cormack is introduced in a more innocuous way: at a pub, operating a claw machine. Isabel is first seen in dramatic early vision, running through a burning cane field.
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