In this episode, Dara reviews Hamnet and Train Dreams, two very successful films in which nature is integral to the experiences of the protagonists. Jessie Buckley lights up Hamnet as a child of nature, and in Train Dreams, Joel Edgerton’s solitary logman carries with him an ineffable sadness and sense of guilt as he chops his way through North American forests in the first half of the twentieth century.
Both stories depict nature and the natural world as vast, unknowable entities that nonetheless have immeasurable repercussions when they are not given due respect and care. Both are stories from the past with resonant lessons for the modern moment. Warming to that theme, Dara considers the oppositionality of nature to modernity and the unsustainable aspect of cities that never stop expanding, becoming metaphors for capitalism itself.
Dara identifies a suspiciousness of nature in the comments of certain movie critics when they were reviewing Hamnet. Highly critical of their response, he recognises this as a New World anti-savage position, something that speaks to the fear of modernisation and civility being defied. He names some films that confront this tension head on, including two Australian classics – Wake in Fright and Picnic at Hanging Rock.
2016 ClearOut piece about the natural life: https://theclearout.com/advice-for-the-young-and-impressionable/its-only-natural/