Jindabyne

Jindabyne sits in the Australian Snowy Mountains, an alpine town rebuilt around a dam after displacement of previous settlements. The river and surrounding high country create a remote, close-knit community wary of outsiders. The landscape amplifies the tension when an Aboriginal girl is found murdered, revealing deep cultural rifts between the town and the local Indigenous community.

🧭 Cultural clash

The discovery of an Aboriginal victim exposes a divide between the Western, rebuilt town and the nearby Indigenous community. The men's initial detachment and attempts to justify their actions reveal lingering colonial attitudes within the community. The reaction—vandalism, slurs, and suspicion—shows how guilt and denial fracture relationships and complicate moral responsibility. The film uses the investigation to question who truly belongs and who bears the burden of accountability.

🤝 Guilt and complicity

What begins as a routine fishing trip becomes a moral crisis that exposes the group’s evasions and half-truths. The police rebuke for “fishing over a dead body” punctures bravado and forces reckoning with responsibility. Wives’ responses carve out differing paths between condemnation and tolerance, underscoring how complicity can be shared across roles. The story suggests that avoiding truth only deepens communal harm.

🍼 Family and trauma

Claire’s pregnancy and her earlier postpartum breakdown complicate the couple’s dynamics, adding urgency to questions of care, loyalty, and future parenting. The fear of loss and the memory of a vanished child haunt the marriage, driving her to seek truth and reconciliation. The film links personal trauma to wider communal guilt, implying that healing requires confronting past wounds and taking responsibility.