Hail

It's taken a while for Hail to get a proper theatrical release since premiering at the Adelaide Film Festival early last year, and just as well. In a tepid year for Australian cinema, this debut fictional feature from Melbourne's Amiel Courtin-Wilson - befitting its title - obliterates its competition, local or otherwise, through sheer primal force. The origins warrant mention: the film's star, Daniel P Jones, was discovered by Courtin-Wilson as a member of a theatre company working with prison inmates. Courtin-Wilson built Hail around Jones and his life's stories, giving a documentary quality that's further enhanced by the naturalism of his non-professional actors and the filmmaking style, evoking the work of independent film pioneer John Cassavetes. The first half of the film depicts Jones re-entering into society and reuniting with his girlfriend (played by his real-life lover, Leanne Campbell). It's when tragedy strikes that the film's style becomes more fractured and expressionistic, not to mention ambitious. If Hail is flawed, it's not for lack of trying; rather, the result of daring to fail, with its often-experimental engagement with, and portrayal of, its alternately brutish but intensely loving subject character. It's a film that approaches society's marginalised figures without a trace of condescension, challenges conventional modes of narrative and representation and, more importantly – lest the aforementioned sounds overly academic and carefully phrased – is a fucking staggering gut-punch of a movie.

In cinemas Thursday 25 October