CARGO

Cargo opens in the aftermath of a viral outbreak, a contagion has swept through Australia and presumably the world, prompting Andy (Martin Freeman) and his wife Kay (Susie Porter) take refuge on a river, in a houseboat with their baby daughter Rosie. A need for food sees them scavenging on board a wrecked yacht in the river and – in a creepy sequence, very reminiscent of Dead Calm – Kay is bitten. Seeking help, Andy takes his ailing wife, who has forty eight hours before she transitions into a crazed zombie, and commandeers a vehicle. During the drive, Andy himself is bitten and it’s really at this point that the rubber hits the road story-wise as Andy must find a guardian for his daughter before he himself ‘turns’.

George A. Romero may not have realised the cinematic impact of what he’d given birth to, back in 1968 when he made Night of the Living Dead but the zombie genre he spawned has become so immense and varied it’s mutated into a variety of sub-genres such as episodic drama/comedy for TV (The Walking Dead, Z Nation, iZombie) or horror fantasy (such as the Resident Evil franchise) and social commentary (Romero’s Day of the dead/Dawn of the dead and Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later. Cargo falls very much into the latter camp, examining race relations in Australia through the prism of a handful of people’s lives amidst the aftermath of a viral outbreak of zombie-ism in Australia.

At points, I was reminded of the game The Last of Us  – though what this reminded me of most is Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road. The film version (which starred Viggo Mortenson and Kodi Smit-McPhee) is very similar in tone to Cargo, though Cargo gives audiences a warmer and more optimistic tone with which to leave the cinema whereas The Road – despite being a lyrical but brutal story – is a very tough watch.

Directors Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke have pulled off a really exceptional genre film, utilising some seriously experienced behind-the-camera talent with Cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson (who shot Vincent Ward’s The Navigator, Shine and Oscar and Lucinda) and Production Designer Josephine Ford (who’s worked on many productions over the last 35 years including the exceptional New Zealand sci-fi film The Quiet Earth). Cargo gives a genre staple some serious emotional heft via some great performances  - particularly with Martin Freeman and the always reliable Anthony Hayes -  and benefits hugely from what is clearly a nuanced filmmaker’s eye.