Latest / The Front / John Malkovich, the CIA, and Easter Island: inside Wild Horse Nine

Transcript

John Malkovich, the CIA, and Easter Island: inside Wild Horse Nine · The Front

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, this is the weekend edition of The Front.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Wild Horse Nine, a new movie from
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Martin McDonagh, is set in 1973 on the eve of
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Pinochet's takeover of Chile. Lead actor John Malkovich jagged the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Volpe Cup, Venice Film Festival's Best Actor Award, for his
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: portrayal of Chris in Wild Horse Nine. Malkovich stars alongside
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Parker Posey and musician Tom Waits,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a cast with more cult cred than Waits' back catalogue.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Senior reporter Sarah Elks has written a feature for the
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Australian's Culture section on Wild Horse Nine and joins me
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: after a very sweary montage.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: You never stop eating?
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: I stop eating.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're sleeping or if you're shooting a guy.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Chris, we're on an airplane, all right? Fucking shooting a guy?
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Shut the fuck up. Don't pull rank on me. I've
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: killed people in countries you can't even spell.
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: Name one country you killed someone in that I can't spell.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Czechoslovakia. You never killed anyone in Czechoslovakia. You just know
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I can't spell it. Sarah, I keep hearing ads on
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the radio and seeing buzz about this movie, Wild Horse Nine,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: which feels like it should be a bit of an
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: arthouse kind of cult movie on at 10 o'clock at
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the locals kind of indie cinema. But this is being
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: positioned as a blockbuster. Do you think it's going to be?
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: I think it has the potential to be, and I
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: think it's already garnering a lot of Oscar buzz. So
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: this is directed by Martin McDonagh. He's a London-born Irish
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: playwright and filmmaker. And if the name doesn't immediately sound
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: familiar to you, you've probably heard of or maybe even
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: watched some of his previous films. So his first feature
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: length was In Bruges with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: For two weeks, in Bruges, in a room like this,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: with you?
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: No way. And then he's done three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: that probably catapulted him onto the mainstream stage. Both Sam
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Rockwell and Frances McDormand won Oscars for that film. And
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: his most recent before this one was Banshees of Inishereen,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: which again was an Oscar movie.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: If you don't stop talking to me... Colm! And if
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: you don't stop bothering me, I have a set of
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: shears at home. And each time you bother me from
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: this day on, I'll take those shears and I'll take
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: one of my fingers off with them. And I'll give
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: that finger to you until I have no fingers left.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Does this make things clearer to you?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Not really, no.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Starting from now.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: But shush like, Paddy.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: You know, shush like.
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I shush like.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: None of them have won Best Film, but Martin McDonagh
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: has been nominated for Best Film and Best Director before.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: all of the Oscar buzz is that it will happen
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: again this time. And there's great Oscar buzz around John Malkovich,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: who I think he's, I mean, he's in his seventies,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: he's 72. He's never won an Oscar before, but the
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: buzz is that perhaps this is the time.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: He's chosen to set it around the 1973 coup in Chile,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: as we described. Just tell us the story of this movie.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell's characters, who are two CIA
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: agents in the 70s. They're based in Chile, and they
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: end up on Easter Island, which is known as Rapa Nui.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: So how's Easter fucking Island, big shot?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Great, Marge. They got all these big stone heads here.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: They remind me of you, actually, except they're quiet.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: And what we learn is that John Malkovich's character, he's
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: sort of the elder statesman.
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: He's Chris.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: He is preparing for retirement, but more than that, he
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: is facing his own mortality. He's terminally ill and what
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: we realise very quickly that he's asked his friend and
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: his colleague, Lee, to kill him. And unfortunately for the
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: CIA and the station head of the CIA is played
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: by Steve Buscemi in this situation, John Malkovich's character is
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: writing his memoir and he is threatening to detail what
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: he knows and what he's been involved in in some
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: of the more extraordinary political assassinations that the United States
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: and the CIA may have been involved in in global
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: politics in the last several decades, including most concerning for
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: Buscemi's character is Malkovich is going to spill the beans
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: on what he may or may not.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: Have had to do with the JFK assassination.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: So that's the, like, political underpinning of this situation. John
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Malkovich is a spy being not very spyey and, like,
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: blabbing to everybody that he comes across, including beautiful South
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: American young students.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: How do you like your new president?
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, what did I say about my foreign president?
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: Everybody likes him.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Not everybody.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: That wouldn't be true.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And who the fuck are you, the CIA?
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: We are the CIA.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: We're totally the CIA. We're not the CIA.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Your country's going to get fucked.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Your country's going to be absolutely fine.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: But at the heart of it is this beautiful friendship
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: between the two CIA agents. So we've got global politics
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: and then we've got sort of a tragicomedy. You know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: it's beautiful, it's very effective and affecting, and there's a
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: lot of swearing, which... is sort of one of McDonagh's trademarks.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It feels very right for 2026, you know, even though
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: this is all centred around something that happened more than
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: a generation ago. Right now, we are thinking about big
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: questions about male friendship and about men and also conspiracy.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, conspiracy theories are everywhere. The sort of line
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: between truth and falsehood, what states do in the shadows
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: is a big theme of the moment now. That's all
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: pretty serious and kind of bleak stuff though, isn't it?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Is this movie bleak?
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Look, I think there are elements of bleakness where looking
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: at a character who's reaching the end of his life
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: in John Malkovich's character, we're looking at American imperialism in
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: the global political sphere. So those things could be bleak,
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: but it is very funny. It's very life-affirming. The two
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: of them have this great banter when Steve Buscemi comes in.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: He is just an injection of humour into the movie.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: We haven't mentioned Parker Posey yet who plays Sam Rockwell,
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: the CIA agent's long-suffering wife who she only appears over
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the telephone in the movie but they have these great
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: phone calls where she says, and Sam Rockwell's character argue
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: about all the affairs she's been having while he's on
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: assignment in South America. So I certainly did a lot
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: of laughing. It is darkly funny.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I often feel guilty in Martin McDonagh movies laughing so much.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Been to the top of the tower? Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: It's rubbish.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Guidebook says it's a must-see.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Well, you lot ain't going up there.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Pardon me? Why?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's all windy stairs. I'm not being funny.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: What exactly are you trying to say? What exactly am
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I trying to say?
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: These are a bunch of fucking elephants.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: You know, in Bruges, there was a character who'd killed
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: a child and was kind of dealing with his guilt
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: about that. He and another hitman find himself in a
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: sort of awful situation and managed to make it kind
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: of really funny. But guilt is one of these big themes,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: isn't it? Characters feeling a lot of guilt, whether that's
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: personal or in this case, it sounds institutional guilt, you know,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: that what has the CIA done? What has America done?
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: How did these individuals participate in that? That's a really
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: interesting kind of theme for 2026 too, isn't it?
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: It certainly is.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: And I think that that's one of the great strengths
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: of McDonagh's filmography is that None of his characters are
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: one dimensional. They all on their face should be people
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: who we shun, who we have no empathy for. But
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: I think what he explores is whether a person is
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: capable of redemption. Are they capable of morality, even though
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: they have done these terrible things? So our CIA agents
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: have participated in assassinations and political instability across the.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Globe for decades.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: And yet we find ourselves rooting for them, just as
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: in Bruges we find ourselves sort of feeling very deeply
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: towards those two assassins who have been sent to Bruges
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: for a bit of introspection and alone time.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: That's one of his great gifts as a filmmaker, I think.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: They shot this on Easter Island, a very remote location.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: I read, I think in your piece that Parker Posey
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: also went to Easter Island to play her part in
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: those phone call interactions, even though she wouldn't be on camera.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Tell me about Easter Island as a character in this movie.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the other thing that McDonagh does, is
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: make the settings of his movie such an indelible part
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: of the film. So in Banshee's of Inner Sheeran, it's
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: on another island. It's a remote island in Ireland. And
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: in this movie, Easter Island and those sort of imposing
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: stone heads that rise out of the landscape, they become
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: characters in their own right.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: And I asked McDonagh about this and.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: He said he'd travelled to Rapa Nui, Easter Island, I
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: think it was more than a decade ago, with the
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: hope that he could set a movie there. And he
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: found surely it's characterful enough, the landscape is very dramatic,
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: very beautiful. But then there's also the logistical challenges of
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: shooting a movie on the most remote inhabited island on earth.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: So it takes like 10 days to sail there from Chile.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: And as you said, it's set in the 1970s.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: So they've got to have, I think they had to
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: import or ship four vintage cars from Chile to the
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: island and They had to build an entire 1970s streetscape.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Like the movie just looks gorgeous. There's a 70s motel
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: in there. There's like a student bar.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: It looks and feels really beautiful and really grounded in
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: that time period. And I think, I mean, I know
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Parker Posey says that McDonagh wanted her there to have
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: a bit more realism so that Sam Rockwell could be
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: on the phone with her and she'd just be across
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: the room. But also she gave me the sense that
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: she just wanted to go to Easter Island Rapa Nui
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: as well and she did as much sightseeing as she
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: could while she was there because, you know, it's so
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: hard to get to, so why not?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Martin McDonagh is probably a playwright first. I mean,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: he's got Oscar and BAFTA wins and nominations, but he's
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: also got Laurence Olivier Awards and Tony nominations. You've written
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: about an Australian twist to his origin story as a playwright.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: We were talking about when he first started to be creative,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: he always knew he wanted to be a writer, came
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: from a very working class background.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: He had no like nepo baby way into the industry.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: So he just churned out radio plays, plays for the stage.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: He was sending around these scripts to people.
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: In the UK and had no luck.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: On spec, he sent a couple of radio plays to
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: the ABC in Australia. He had no money at the time.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: He only had enough money for postage. He didn't have
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: enough money to include like a for them to send
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: the scripts back if they didn't like them.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: But luckily enough for him, he said his very first
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: check for.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Writing was from ABC Radio in Australia when they bought
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: his radio play, he was in his early 20s, he
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: got 500 Australian dollars. So he says he feels a
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: fondness for Australia now because that was his first go.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: He also urged me not to go and try and
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: find those radio plays because he said that they were terrible.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I don't believe it because obviously he's brilliant.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: But, yeah, that's how he got his start.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: And also in this time of furious creativity, I think
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: he wrote something like seven plays in ten months and
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: then he had this extraordinary time on the West End
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: in London where four of his plays were being performed concurrently.
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: And in that year, the only other playwright to have
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: four plays on the West End was Shakespeare. So that
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: claim to fame has followed him around since then.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Well, that Australian twist is enough for us to claim
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: him as an honorary Australian so we can all cheer
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: him on in the Oscars.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. Our man. Thanks, Sarah.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Sarah Elks is a senior reporter at The Australian. We've
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: put a link to her feature on Wild Horse Nine
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: in the show notes. You can read more of Sarah's
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: work anytime at theaustralian.com.au. Thanks for joining us on The
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Front this week. I'm Claire Harvey. The Australian's audio lead
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: is Jasper Leake. Our team also includes Kristen Amiet, Leah Tamaglou,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Tiffany Dimak and Joshua Burton.