The Nightingale opens one week from today, at SIFF. IFC Films
There’s a shocking amount of negative buzz around The Nightingale, the new film from New Zealand writer/director Jennifer Kent, who also wrote and directed 2014’s surprise horror hit The Babadook. Audience members at the Australian premiere of The Nightingale reportedly walked out, with one shouting, “She’s already been raped, we don’t need to see it again!”
It’s true that rape is a big part of The Nightingale, which centers on an Irish convict Clare (Aisling Franciosi) and her hunt for justice and revenge. The film is set in 1825 Tasmania, where convicts work off their crimes for British settlers and where settlers enslave the island’s indigenous peoples. It would be weird not to have rape in the film.