Controversial Revenge Fable Or Love Letter To Aussie Pop Culture? Terror Nullius Could Be Both

"Sometimes you just need to collectively watch a misogynist get devoured by a crocodile or a bicentennial celebration ravaged by flesh-eating sheep."

Yes, Australia, sometimes you do. And Terror Nullius, the latest film from art collective Soda_Jerk, delivers exactly that and more as it reconfigures and recontextualises characters, dialogue and scenes from Australian pop culture over the last few decades into a vision dubbed "equal parts political satire, eco-horror and road movie". Or as Soda_Jerk itself puts it; "A vigilante fable of social justice where the historical forces of oppression finally get dealt a bit of what they regularly dish out."

That notion of a "revenge fantasy", where the fair-dinkum likes of Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee and Mel Gibson experience a bit of brutal payback for unenlightened attitudes and actions, stemmed from a simmering sense of anger, according to Soda_Jerk (aka sisters Dan and Dominique Angeloro). "It came from a place of being truly pissed with the state of politics in this country," they say. "And when you feel powerless to effect change, sometimes it can be a powerful thing to see it."

"Rewatching [Crocodile Dundee], we were truly shaken by the extent of the racism, misogyny  and  transphobia."

And seeing figures so deeply entrenched in Australian pop culture refashioned through sampling only enhances that vision. "We can get pretty crypto-mystical talking about sampling, and how it's really a form of contemporary witchcraft," Soda_Jerk admits. "The short-story version would simply be that we feel like part of the power of sampling is the way that it functions as a kind of glue, forging new connections between disparate moments in time, and unlikely alliances between audience members through their shared past experience of the same thing. This idea of sampling as a means of creating fleeting micro-communities of shared experience is the way we've been thinking lately."

Having said that, Soda_Jerk also points out that while Terror Nullius is an indictment of certain social and political viewpoints, there's also a lot of love for much of the material that makes up the film. "Gosh, we have so many deep feels for Australian cinema," says Soda_Jerk. "Politically, the film may be a revenge fable, but cinematically it's more of a love letter. There are already so many brilliant Australian films doing the work of interrogating and muckraking national mythologies, we feel like our role was really just to try and forge these films into a new constellation of solidarity. To set them in motion together.

"So mostly we are incredibly fond of the films we sample, with some notable exceptions like Crocodile Dundee. Rewatching that movie, we were truly shaken by the extent of the racism, misogyny and transphobia articulated by Mick Dundee. The fact that Tourism Australia recently chose to sink 36 million dollars into rebranding the country in his image is completely macabre."

Seeing Mick get his comeuppance is satisfying, sure. But for Soda_Jerk, one Terror Nullius moment that is particularly effective is a remixing of a pivotal scene in the acclaimed 2001 film Lantana, which now sees a bereft, weeping Anthony LaPaglia driven to tears by audio of journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger "calling out Australia's secret history of brutality and genocide".

"The content of the tape is not an easy listen, but there are also things about the way it's staged that deepens this feeling of discomfort," says Soda_Jerk. "Not everyone will feel the emotion of the scene, but the fact that it creates a space for viewers to collectively sit through a moment of historical reckoning and consider their own complicity is something that feels important to us."

And it's not just the film's content that might be considered contentious. Terror Nullius attracted media attention recently when the Ian Potter Foundation, the philanthropic organisation that bankrolled the project, publicly withdrew marketing support for its premiere screening at ACMI in Melbourne. The film's creators alleged on social media that the reason behind this was that the funding body found Terror Nullius too "un-Australian".

"The whole thing feels like a bit of a riddle," is Soda_Jerk's response. "In these heightened political times, every organisation and their dog is chasing after the countercultural glow of political art. But after the initial honeymoon wears off, the organisation inevitably starts to worry that their decision is headed back to bite them. All we can hope is that artists don't let this institutional risk averseness impact the kind of work they want to make."

Soda_Jerk feels it's necessary for art to continue to provoke, especially in a time when there's more and more need for discussion and dissent. "Wish we could say that it feels like the resistance is gaining ground, but on most days it still feels more like having the ground pulled out from under us," they say. "But at the same time, we feel insanely fortunate to be surrounded by so many incredible humans who are bringing the fight, building their own communities on their own terms, and looking out for one another. And that's got to mean something."

Terror Nullius screens from 7 Jun, at Event Cinemas George Street and Dendy Newtown