JINDABYNE

 Ray Lawrence has only made three films in a career that began in 1985 with "Bliss" which was enough to get him noticed but he didn't direct again until 2001 when he made "Lantana" and five years later he made "Jindabyne". He's done nothing since but on the strength of "Lantana" and "Jindabyne" alone he should be considered among the best directors to have emerged in the last forty years. "Jindabyne" is based on a Raymond Carver story, the same one Robert Altman used in "Short Cuts", but Lawrence has expanded it so that it now deals with issues beyond those in the original story.

The central premise is the same; four men on a fishing trip find the naked body of a young woman in the river but instead of reporting it straight away, they go on fishing, having tied the body to a tree and naturally their actions have devastating consequences both for the men and their families. But Lawrence has set his film in Australia and the girl, who has been raped and murdered, is Aboriginal and that fact alone has consequences.

Superbly written, directed and acted, (in particular by Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne), this is a genuinely disturbing film and, while anchored very specifically in a certain place, its themes are universal. It was a critical success at the time but didn't prove popular with the public and is now thought of largely as a cult movie. Seek it out; I think you will astonished.