The Killing Field (2014)

A serial killer is loose in a small town in Australia, and the local police force is overwhelmed by the task of solving the murders. But viewers learn that later, after a rather surreal opening sequence that introduces many of the main characters but without connecting them until later in the narrative. Viewers see and know about as much as the police detectives do when the case arrives on their desks.

When The Killing Field opens, a boy named Bruno rides a bicycle through the town’s streets at night. The camera follows him from behind at first while he rides to a party, where teens are drinking and no adults are sight. He meets a girl named Becky, who says hello to him but then turns to her friend Sophie and tells her that she is leaving the party because she is meeting someone. After she leaves the party, Becky walks through town and sees someone named Jackson Ciesolka punch another man because of something the man said to his fiancé Stacey, although this second man denies saying anything. Becky moves on and meets another man in a car. They talk, and he drives away alone. The last shot of Becky is from the back, as she walks away and disappears, first into the shadows, then into the dark of night.

The film cuts to daytime. People are calling Becky’s name and searching a field outside a factory. Fencing around the factory comes with a warning sign about trespassing and the danger of asbestos. Among the searchers are Becky’s father, Kevin Ryan, and the man she met the night that she disappeared, Damian Jeffries. Police officers are also members of the search party. An officer’s search dog finds the first of five bodies buried on the factory site. Becky is not among the victims, which only deepens the mystery about the killer, the victims, and Becky herself. Investigators from Sydney are called in to help because the local force is too small for such a large case.

What makes The Killing Field noir for me is the overwhelming feeling that anything and everything could go wrong. And everyone could be a suspect; everyone acts like a suspect. The tension inherent in a murder investigation is amplified by other underlying tensions: the townspeople versus the outsiders, in the form of the police investigation team; the romantic tension between the two lead investigators, Eve Winter and Lachlan McKenzie; the fact that viewers are just waiting for the confrontation between the killer and Winter based simply on the facts that she is the star and she has blond hair, just like all the killer’s victims.

And then there’s the tension between what Winter wants and what McKenzie wants, both romantically and professionally. She would rather not work on a murder investigation ever again. He needs her expertise to solve a murder in the town of Mingara (the film was shot in the town of Gulgong, New South Wales, Australia), where five young women are discovered in unmarked graves. And it doesn’t hurt that he finds her attractive and knows that he can influence her if he can find the right buttons to push.

In fact, after the film’s opening showing the events leading up to the disappearance of Becky Ryan and the discovery of five bodies in a field bordering an industrial plant, McKenzie travels to Sydney to convince Winter to join his investigation team:

• Lachlan McKenzie: “So you don’t miss being in the field?”

• Eve Winter: “If this is about Mingara, the answer’s no.”

• McKenzie: “This case needs you.”

• Winter: “Oh! Well, I don’t need it. You know, there’s no PTSD in policy making.”

• McKenzie: “We always said that the bureaucracy was worse than the bodies.”

• Winter: “That was a lot of bodies ago.”

• McKenzie: “We’d be running the investigation together, Eve. Equal footing.”

• Winter: “And when has that ever worked?”

• McKenzie: “We can make it work.”

• Winter: “There are other detectives.”

• McKenzie: “But they’re not you.”

• Winter: “Good luck with it.”

• McKenzie: “Five bodies, Eve. Serial killer.”

• Winter: “I’ve done my time with murderers and dead bodies.”

• McKenzie: “Their Achilles tendons have been cut.”

• Winter: “To stop them running away. You’ll find a good team.”

• McKenzie: “Rebecca Ryan’s still missing. I think she could still be alive.”

This last line from Lachlan McKenzie seems to do the trick. He seems to know beforehand that Winter will be more likely to join the investigation if she knows that she is looking for a missing person and not a murderer and/or a dead body. After a close-up on Winter, the film cuts to a small plane landing in a field, with the investigation team, including Eve Winter, alighting and walking toward the adjoining road to meet Officer Matt Davis.

Eve Winter mentions post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in her first appearance on the screen, in the first conversation that I have transcribed above. Viewers don’t yet know her backstory, but she seems to be already familiar with trauma and PTSD, and she doesn’t want to have to experience either one again. In spite of her instincts to avoid anguish, angst, and trauma, she is drawn into McKenzie’s investigation because she is one of the best at her job, she still feels some compassion for murder victims, and she wants to help if she can. Fate seems to be pulling her in again.

The Killing Field is a story dripping with angst. Many of the characters, the residents of Mingara, have secrets, some more benign than others. But the fact that people try to hide so much from the detectives investigating the murders increases the level of suspicion and the tension. The soundtrack is also perfect for setting the mood. The music accentuates the feeling that anyone in town could be a murderer, that no one is above suspicion.

The scenes between Eve Winter and Lachlan McKenzie when they are in Sydney are very polished and glitzy. They seem a bit out of place in this film, but these scenes in Sydney at the start of the film show how Winter is drawn into the murder investigation and introduce her backstory, which is developed further as the story is told. The final scenes in Sydney show how much backbone she really has, and I found that a very satisfying way to end such a tense film.

May 4, 2014, television broadcast date  •  Directed by Samantha Lang  •  Screenplay by Michaeley O’Brien, Sarah Smith  •  Music by Basil Hogios, Caitlin Yeo  •  Edited by Dany Cooper  •  Cinematography by Toby Oliver

Rebecca Gibney as Detective Sergeant Eve Winter  •  Chloe Boreham as Constable Bridget Anderson  •  Liam McIntyre as Detective Dan Wild  •  Peter O’Brien as Inspector Lachlan McKenzie  •  Taylor Ferguson as Rebecca (aka Becky) Ryan  •  Sam O’dell as Kevin Ryan  •  Blazey Best as Jacinta Ryan  •  Laura Bunting as Chloe Ryan  •  Elia Saville as Sophie Britton  •  Warwick Young as Matt Davis  •  Kane Johnson as Mikey Davis  •  James Fraser as Bruno Fernando  •  Patrick Thompson as Larry Fernando  •  Eamon Farren as Damian Jeffries  •  Josh McConville as Jackson Ciesolka  •  Dave Eastgate as Ray Stafford  •  Emma Jackson as Kathy Stafford  •  Odile le Clezio as Angie  •  Darren Gilshenan as Brian Fleet  •  Anna Lise Phillips as Jennifer Fleet  •  Kallan Richards as Lincoln De Luca  •  Edmund Lembke-Hogan as Darren McKechine  •  Damien Garvey as Brett Holloway

Produced by Seven Productions, Cornerstone Pictures  •  Broadcast by Seven Network