Keeps Justin Kurzel , director of 'The True History of the Kelly Gang' , that history is history for its dedication to legend, by its aspiration to truth and unshakable foundation that supports nations, states and, where appropriate, universes. And that the legend is there to be refuted by history itself. And probably backwards. The Australian filmmaker premieres this Friday what could be called a 'western' punk but with a Borgian vocation, so it has both a visual and a plot maze.
The life of the most famous of the outlaws of his country is told. Ned Kelly (1854-1880), as Jesse James in the United States or, rushing, Curro Jiménez here, was much more than simply the most famous of the ' bushrangers ' (the former escaped convicts who took refuge in the inhospitable Australian desert) . It is a myth that holds the record for being the Australian with the most published biographies. That, in addition to innumerable studies, documentaries, films and even a museum where, never better said, his death mask rests. Before Kurzel, Gregor Jordan brought Heath Ledger to life in 2003 and three decades ago it was Mick Jagger himself who did not miss the opportunity to show himself to the limit of morals, borders and vices in the Tony Richardson film from 1970.
"For anyone born in Australia," says the director, "it's almost an obsession. Whether you like it or not. The debate about whether Kelly is closer to Robin Hood or a simple murderer never ends. But, in any case , is the product and maximum representative of a society founded, like almost all, by violence. " The film builds on the Brooker Prize-winning novel by Peter Carey, which, rather than simply narrating the hero's life, confronts her at the size of her myth. Kelly played by George MacKay on the edge of himself writes his story for his son so as not to let others tell it. And in that mirror between the memory that is reconstructed and the mythology that grows beyond the facts, the film acquires the dimension of a cathartic story about truth, lies and the power of fabulation. "It is in that debate in which we currently live. The ' fakenews ' are the extreme and pernicious example of a society that has perhaps forgotten about the obligation to sensibly rethink its history, its stories," adds Kurzel.
To situate us, Ned Kelly became famous both for his crimes and for the lacerating injustice that preceded them. For this reason and for the armor (which remains almost intact) and with which he only faced an entire army in his last crazy battle. But he did not die there. His trial, conviction and execution were the events of a time that even today resists being forgotten. He was one, the third, of the eight children of an Irish marriage. At just 12 years old, his father died in prison. And from there, and from his birth into a family exploited in semi-slavery conditions by the landlords they served and by the police who were chasing them, everything else emerged. As a teenager he lived his first forays by the hand of the outlaw Harry Power who in the film gives life to an excessive and plump Russell Crowe . His first sentence was for stealing a horse and he served three years in prison. What follows is a story of robbery, revenge and, of course, brutal murder. After his mother was imprisoned, he fled, and in his flight, the blood of three agents sealed his fate.
The rest is legend. And History. "It is the obligation of all of us to return to our past. Again and again. And more in a country like mine raised over the genocide to the entire indigenous population," says laconic Kurzel. Kelly and his band not only gained fame for what they did. Also because of what they said. Or more specifically, by what Ned wrote in the form of a manifesto in which he denounced his Government, the police and even the British Empire itself. He demanded justice and in his demand he won both the hatred of the powerful and the encouragement of the oppressed. Pure legend. Pure history. And so on until at Glenrowan, the equivalent of OK Australian farmyard, he and his men fought the police in the final battle. Lots of police. An entire army. Clad in plow-forged armor, they were ready to die or kill. Only he survived. The last chapter of his life was a veritable war of stories, of legends, between those who saw in him the ultimate threat and those who yearned for the last hope. After the trial, he is sentenced to death by hanging. His last words say, "Such is life", life is like that.
For some, "the last expression of the lawless border." And therefore, the very possibility of adventure. Where there are no limits, live the certainty of a world still to be built and, therefore, new. And better. For others, the last evil that civilization had to remove in order to grow. And for everyone, again, a myth, an icon. As historian and journalist Martin Flanagan wrote: "What makes Ned a legend is not that everyone sees him the same, but that everyone simply sees him. He is like a fire on the horizon whose incarnate glow hurts the night . "
Kurzel knows that the ' western ' made cinema and that is why his film is a ' western ' that discusses the language of cinema and fabulation. "I want to believe that the initial conventionalism of the film breaks as it progresses hand in hand with all the stories that go through it. It is history and it is myth, it is reality and it is fiction," says the director and he is right. They say that the bandits who followed Ned and Ned himself were all dressed in women's clothing according to an old Irish tradition. Their cross-dressing made them more fearsome, crazy, unclassifiable. For heroes and villains. Ultimately, the distance that separates the hero from the villain was never clear. In his story ' Theme of the traitor and the hero' , Borges (hence the Borgian from before) imagines the plot of a future story, or perhaps already past. The story, says the author, takes place in an oppressed country. Let's put Ireland. There, the great-grandson of the liberator Killpatrick investigates the death of his heroic ancestor. And there, the great-grandson discovers that the greatest of the conspirators was, in reality and at the same time, the greatest of traitors. His death was no more than a ploy - devised by the one who discovered the vileness and accepted with suicidal heroism by the victim - to, despite everything, save the cause. And so the traitor, who was first a hero, becomes a hero again despite his betrayal. Or vice versa.
And probably it has always been so. From the history even of the Australian Ned Kelly.
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