Australian director Ivan Sen, actor Aaron Pedersen bring Indigenous perspectives to Aussie films, TV

Yahoo

08-04-2025

This article was originally published in the Houston Chronicle and is reprinted here with permission.Cary DarlingHouston ChronicleJay Swan is a pioneer.Well, he wouldn't see it that way, but he is. The fictional creation of Australian filmmaker/writer Ivan Sen, Swan is an Aboriginal police detective who investigates homicides and missing persons cases in his country's sprawling and sun-scorched Outback. Like the American cop and cowboy archetypes on which he's based, he's a taciturn loner who wrecked his marriage, failed at fatherhood and hit the bottle way too much.But, though he might stagger, he manages to remain upright on issues of right and wrong.That's why he has become the hero of what's turned into an unlikely hit franchise in Australia, appearing first in the 2013 film "Mystery Road," then the 2016 sequel "Goldstone," which had a screening at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston on April 4, and three seasons of the "Mystery Road" mini-series, with a fourth due to be released this year.
Each of the movies and seasons of the TV series is self-contained though Swan's character arc acts as a through-line. Sometimes compared to "True Detective" and the early works of Taylor Sheridan (most notably "Wind River"), "Mystery Road" straddles the worlds of White and Black Australia, with Swan torn between both.Yet as familiar a trope as Swan the detective/cowboy might be to American eyes, he also represents something new, a glimpse into an Indigenous Australian world that remains invisible in most of Australia's cinematic exports. In many films set in Outback, rural and small-town Australia — think the "Mad Max" "Wolf Creek" and "Wyrmwood" franchises, "Walkabout," "Picnic at Hanging Rock," "Wake in Fright," and the self-explanatory "Beaten to Death" — nearly everything and everyone in the country wants you dead.In "Mystery Road," and the work of many Indigenous directors, the Outback may be a place of danger, but it's also home. In Sen's world, and especially in "Goldstone," the landscape is rendered in all of its breathtaking and colorful wide-screen splendor. (For his 2023 film, "Limbo," Sen flipped the script and shot the Outback in a luminous black and white.)All of it makes for a fascinating character study, one that has broken through to the wider Australian audience, won multiple awards at home and become the most globally popular example of what's known as "Outback Noir." And Swan is a direct reflection of Sen, the man who created him, and Aaron Pedersen, the actor who has portrayed him in the films and first two seasons of the series and was a producer on the "Mystery Road" film. (The third and fourth seasons, "Mystery Road: Origin," is an origin story with a younger actor, Mark Coles Smith, in the main role)."Jay Swan is someone who has a similar history to my own," said photographer-turned-filmmaker Sen in an interview with the Australian film site HeyUGuys. "I grew up in a little country town and had to move between my local Indigenous family and the White part of the town. I spent a lot of time going between the two of them and didn't feel like I belonged to either camp."'The thing about (Jay Swan) is that he has strong relevance to what this country's about and also who we are, how we represent ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world,' Pedersen told the Houston Chronicle in a phone interview from Sydney in 2018. 'His story could go on forever because it's such a complicated journey, not only as an individual but as a community of people.'
"Mystery Road" is an ongoing passion project for Sen. With "Goldstone," for instance, he not only served as director and screenwriter but also film editor, cinematographer and composer. Meanwhile, the TV series, on which Sen is an executive producer, has become a canvas for other Indigenous directors/writers such as Wayne Blair ("The Sapphires," which enjoyed an American release), Rachel Perkins (the Indigenous musical "Bran Nue Dae") and Warwick Thornton ("Samson & Delilah," a Cannes award winner and one of the best Australian films of the 21st century). It should be noted that this wave of Indigenous directors corresponds with an increased Aboriginal presence in the world of popular music as well.Where Jay goes from here is an open question. Pedersen was set to continue in the TV series until he decided to take a break from acting, forcing Sen and company to pivot to an origin story, which will continue in season four.But even if Pedersen, who has also declined to work in Hollywood partly because it would take him away from caring for his special-needs brother, decides not to saddle up again, Swan's story doesn't have to end. Sen has created an indelible character whose journey is worth the trip.Cary Darling is the arts and entertainment editor for the Houston Chronicle, overseeing coverage of movies, television, pop music and the fine arts. He can be reached at [e-mail]. He oversees the coverage of movies, television, pop music and the fine arts.