>Romper Stomper
Produced by Daniel Scharf and Ian Ringle
Written/Directed by Geoffrey Wright
Starring: Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock and Jacqueline McKenzie
Reviewed by Jeremy Smith
Violence on TV, in the cinema, is often bemoaned by the media as the downside of mass culture. This moral — sometimes conservative — motif of cultural critics, trotted out time and again, has gained yet another guernsey with Romper Stomper.
Such a reaction should surpise no-one. This story of an underworld of racial violence located in the western suburbs of Melbourne points, honestly, to the ugly other-side of the "Lucky Country". Poverty, alienation and patterns of social isolation mixed with racism are the themes of this film which underscore a narrative of frights, rejections and hatred. These themes are not all that is real in the film. The violence is also depicted with sickening accuracy.
Much of what is generally shown on TV — from the depths of violent cop shows to the dizzying heights of Hollywood Rambos — always leaves one with a sense of unreality. Pain and trauma are absent, and life is devalued. One thing that Romper Stomper does is to reverse this pattern. When hardened skins bash, it looks like that, during and after the event.
The film is essentially an unending series of violent and traumatic scenes in which supposedly insensitive, street-wise characters gradually reveal their passions and the fears. The opening scene sets this up for the audience. Two Vietnamese teenagers accidentally skate into the gang of skins and receive a cold, racist and vicious response. The final scene, by contrast, depicts the ultimate collapse of the veneer of skinhead insensitivity, as Davey and Gabe hold each other on the beach, crying over the way in which their small, pathetic subcultural world has imploded. In between the story revolves around the slow demise of the gang of skinhead squatters.
However, the film is not merely about racism and violence, it also examines other aspects of skinhead subculture. Some of it is remarkably credible. When the skins aren't shattering the lives of the local Vietnamese community or Gabe's rich father, they are betraying each other. For a skin there seems to be few friends. Other features of the lifestyle also figure in the gang's activities: drinking, boxing, smoking, sex. Some of the minor peculiarities are implausible — skinheads squatting is unlikely, but skinheads squatting in the midst of a Vietnamese community in Footscray is out of the question.
Still, these small considerations are not so central to the main political impact of the film. Those who have been critical of the film have noted its violence and racism. This reviewer thinks that there are several weaknesses in the argument of those who believe that the depiction of such violence will encourage its duplication. The impact of the film should be measured in its reception and its depiction. On both counts the violence of the ultra-rightist gang cannot be seen as glorious. For the audience, this is obvious. Anyone who is vaguely skeptical of racism, surely must walk out of this film deploring it.
Within the narrative itself, racist violence fails the characters who propagate it. The only two who "survive" (Davey and Gabe) are those who, in the end, are not, or could not be committed to the Nazi cause. Racism is depicted as a doomed strategy for all involved, disaster is destined to follow in its wake.
Back to reception. Some people with racist dispositions will see this film and may feel even more encouraged. However, if this is the case, it says more about the pervasiveness of prejudice in this society than it does about the film. Many others, unconvinced by the bigotry which characterises Australian culture, will leave whatever doubts they had in the cinema. In general the film does not provide a broad political analysis, but if the Doubting Thomases can be swayed by Romper Stomper, then it's worthwhile.
So much of what we consume on the big and small screen is simulated. Violence more so than anything else. To view a film which tells the truth about racial violence in all its ugliness makes an unpleasant, but necessary change. More importantly, it works to dissolve the myths around racism by asserting the serious consequences of violence and prejudice. Progressives should not celebrate this film so much as understand that uncovering the horror of racism must help us, albeit indirectly, to combat it. In this sense telling the truth is the only option we have, and probably the only one that was available to the producers of Romper Stomper.