For his first documentary, the Australian auteur Justin Kurzel – whose oeuvre includes Snowtown, True History of the Kelly Gang and Nitram – was never going to direct a paint-by-numbers talking heads fest. Hence it came as no surprise that his portrait of the musician Warren Ellis, a member of the Dirty Three and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, is a richly cinematic affair, opening with a blurry shot of a field that wouldn’t look out of place in any of his narrative productions. It quickly evolves into a work with a living, breathing, morphing energy, as if the film – which is drifty and amorphous, in a good way – is swelling and shrinking, expanding and contracting, right in front of us.
Nor was it a surprise that music is a big part of it. On several occasions the frame bobs around the subject in a swaying motion as he conducts a one-man hoedown, tearing at his violin with fire-on-the-mountain energy and panache, as if he were a middle-aged Johnny from The Devil Went Down to Georgia, using his bow and strings to rip shreds off Lucifer. Ellis has intriguing presence and a compelling mien: the visage and hard-earned reflections of an introspective person who has been to a lot of places, done a lot of dope and learned a lot of lessons.
Early shots in Ellis Park incorporate lush rainforests and majestic terrain, evoking a spirit of largesse that makes more sense when Kurzel unpacks the titular location: an animal sanctuary in Sumatra, Indonesia, that rehabilitates injured creatures and releases them back into the wild, or provides a dignified final chapter to their lives. Ellis co-founded the sanctuary with the animal rights activist Femke den Haas, who is a key subject in the film, and whose team also runs the Sumatra Wildlife Center, which is located along a popular smuggling route for dealers in illegal wildlife.
For a long time the animal and altruistic elements lie at the film’s peripherals, coming into full focus during a cathartic final stretch in which Ellis visits the park that bears his name for the first time. His eventual arrival feels destined, rather than the ticking of a narrative box. In one lovely scene the musician helps release rehabilitated birds into the wild.
But Kurzel is far too good to allow any cornball messages to take hold. Other moments feature one of the sanctuary’s heart-melting residents: an armless monkey named Rina whose interesting face forms a leitmotif and reminds us that the old idiom describing screen magnetism – “the it factor” – can also apply to our friends in the animal kingdom.
Generously sized sections of the film provide personal insights into Ellis and his habitus, none of which feel laboured. There’s a road trip element, with Kurzel accompanying Ellis as he visits places of formative significance, including his childhood home in Ballarat, where he hangs out with his elderly parents and recalls a surreal memory involving a college of clowns in their back yard. Where other documentaries would put “THIS WAS HIS CHILDHOOD” in highlighter pen, Kurzel feels his way through, as though navigating a beautiful overgrown garden, sometimes distracted by the details of Ellis’s life but more or less staying the course.
Ellis Park moves to a strange and interesting melody, its motions circular and circuitous. Hats off to editor Nick Fenton (who also cut True History of the Kelly Gang and Nitram) for crafting wonderfully intuitive rhythms. For me the entire film exists in the shadow of mist-covered mountains shown early in the runtime, looming in the background, beckoning it towards something big and great. You could say that several elements – Ellis’s career, Den Haas’ activism, the story of the sanctuaries – could form the focus of entire documentaries. Which is true – but it’s satisfying to see them brought into the same space, pulled together by life, art and happenstance. This film will stay with you.
Ellis Park is being shown at Melbourne international film festival until 24 August; dates for Australian and UK general releases have yet to be announced
