Ivan Sen's transnational post-westerns: Mystery Road (2012) and Goldstone (2016)

Abstract

This paper uses Neil Campbell's definition of post-Westerns as films 'coming after and going beyond the traditional Western whilst engaging with and commenting on its deeply haunting assumptions and values' (Post-Westerns, 2013) in order to expand it to a transnational, post-colonial context and focus on two films made by Australian director Ivan Sen (Mystery Road [2013] and Goldstone [2016]) that can be considered Australian post-Westerns. These two films make references not only to American Westerns, but also to the less known genre of Australian Westerns or 'bushranger films', and they use, on the one hand, an aboriginal protagonist as reminder of the 'black tracker' typical of Australian Westerns, and on the other, the Australian outback to question the country's identity and foundational myths. By establishing a complex dialogue both with American Westerns and their Australian counterpart, Ivan Sen articulates a discourse which refutes the country's foundational myth as a terra nullius, and proposes a new sense of national identity that is inclusive of the Indigenous experience.