5. Capturing Real Life
The real and the fictional has always been a big dichotomy in film. Achieving the real, documentaries, reality stardomwe wont get into the examples here. You have your next article to read. But The Hunter uses this ever-popular notion to its advantage. Some of its most compelling sequences are the ones where Martin trudging through the button-grass, taking in his surroundings, marking maps, drinking water, and of course, meticulously setting traps in close, visceral shots. Thoughtful, documentary-like pacing is achieved frequently throughout the movie through editing and sound. Animals quietly go about their business. The sound of wire squishing through organ bait is right in the foreground. What is Foley and what is wild sound is arguable for those of us not in the editing room. The movie seems to try to show many aspects of this story as they really could be. There are shots of Martin just cleaning, which move the story forward but are actually interesting to watch. The Australian colloquialisms dont seem to be too watered-down. Some moments are shot with objectively static cameras while others are filmed almost haphazardly with objects slinking in and out of the frame. For the traps, the filmmakers had a bushcraft consultant. Much of the success of these documentary elements comes from Willem Dafoe, who is the kind of actor who not only knows his craft, but enthusiastically embraces the physical work and research for the roles he chooses, and you can see it in every shot hes in. The movie uses Dafoes clear interest and talent in conveying Martins activities as a way to consider our own day-to-day life, because although Martins activities may be mundane or tiring for him, they are enthralling, a selling point for Dafoe and us, and pull us into Martins worldthe reality, necessity, and consequences of itand in turn, because of the documentary-like tone and pace, we have time to think about the scope of our world in the process. The Hunter even reminds us that its a movie by putting the fictional in plain sight of the real, which emphasizes all of the other movie conventions even more. In one scene, real archive photos of Tasmanian tigers are interspersed with a fake one created by the filmmakers. The movie really seems to be a statement on movies, movie conventions, genres, and influences with all of these things (and more to be mentioned) intermingling with one another. It adds to the documentary element if you notice it, not only because it augments the idea of an all-seeing conquered world with nowhere to go, but because the act itself of thinking unobtrusively about movies while youre watching a movie is an exercise The Hunter wants you to do to consider what its saying and its place in your experiences, whether in other movies youve seen or in life.