A film called "Beautiful Kate"...

Have you ever watched a film and by the end of it you are left feeling like “What the hell was that all about?” Well I just experienced that. I watched an Australian movie called Beautiful Kate.

The movie was shot in the amazing Flinders Rangers in South Australia. I imagine that people who haven’t been to Australia before think that all of Australia looks like this. It’s the typical Australian Outback but truly a breathtakingly beautiful part of this amazing country.

Before I go into the movie I have to say that this movie is a little on the eclectic side and you would need an acquired taste to fully understand and appreciate it as it is either going to shock the pants off you, and disgust you, or it’s going to entice and enthral you.

The main character is Ned who is a successful author who had moved to the city. He is asked to return back to his fathers homestead by his sister Sally. The homestead is as remote and isolated and away from the world. Imagine it being stuck literally in the middle of nowhere. Sally has basically asked Ned to come home to say his last goodbyes to his dying father. Ned has no relationship with his father; in fact he loathes the man and blames him for the death or suicide of his older brother. He arrives bringing his very young fiancée Toni with him who has a brutal time adjusting to the harshness and total isolation of the land.

Whilst staying with his father Ned begins to remember his past and the dirty family secrets and things tend to start bubbling to the surface. He starts to remember the dark secrets that he shared with his beautiful twin sister, Kate, when they were children. The film flickers between the present time and the past.

Their mother had passed away years ago and the tyrannical father was left to raise 4 children. I guess he didn’t have the parenting skills to do this on his own when he is also trying to work his land. Ned and his twin sister Kate are extremely naive and innocent in a sense as Kate was always walking around the house topless at the age of about 14. It comes across as she had no idea that was she was doing was inappropriate. There is a sort of real innocence to her.

They show scenes where Ned touches his sister’s breast and then another full on scene where he ejaculated on her (yes you read right). Its clearly incest but, and I’m not making any excuses here, but it was almost like part of them thought that this was wrong but the other part sort of thought it was OK to do. In reality I’m sure we were all taught and will teach and instil in our own children the basic no-no’s like touching your sister up OR having your sister touch you up is not the right thing.

So one evening Ned went out and got drunk. He decides to go for a skinny-dip in the family’s dam when out of the blue his twin sister Kate joins him. What initially was seen as an innocent swim turns out quite the opposite. Kate ended up seducing her drunk brother and then proceeds to initiate and have sex with Ned on the banks of the dam. Ned totally freaks out after the deed was done and starts to feel guilt, shame, disgust and remorse whilst his twin Kate was completely and utterly unperturbed by the whole deal. (I at this point sat screaming at the TV screen – NO!!!!!)

Kate then continues to want more sex with her brother Ned but he was always refusing her advances and telling her NO. Since Ned would do nothing but refuse her sexual advances and avoid being in the same room with her Kate then drags in their older brother Cliff and suggests to their older brother that Ned was making unwanted advances towards her (what a little bitch!) A huge brawl ensues and in walks their father Bruce.

Bruce I think was unsure about what his boys were brawling about but as punishment he tells Ned that he has to take his sister to the local dance. During the dance Kate gets a bit hmmm (just say it the way it is DH) ok she gets horny whilst dancing with her brother. Ned backs off and picks up a local girl at the dance and then cut to a scene of Ned having sex in the back of a car with the local tramp. Its clear that Ned is constantly trying to distance himself from his twin sister as he wants no part in the sick sexual game that Kate so wants. On the way home from the dance Ned discovers his dead sisters body in Cliff, his brother, car and then finds his brother Cliff dead in the shearing shed on the property.

The movie then comes back to the present time. Its revealed that Toni the fiancé discovered that Ned had an “affair” with this twin and she scoots out of town wanting no more with Ned. Eventually Sally his only sibling who is alive reveals that she knew all about the secret Ned was hiding. She reveals that the car accident Cliff and Kate were in had left another huge mystery as the cars clock had stopped at time of impact and no one could figure what had taken Cliff so long to get home from the dance and then commit suicide by hanging himself. It seems that Cliff was also having or committing incest with his young sister and he killed himself after the shame and guilt and realisation of what they had done.

The movie then shows Ned reconciling with his father Bruce and apologising for blaming his father for death suicide of his brother Cliff. He doesn’t tell his father the truth about his twin Kate because Kate was his fathers favourite.

I was gob smacked by the time the film had finished. It was a movie filled with one twist and then as soon as you came to grips with that twist another was thrown in to totally blow your socks off. It was an intense film that touched the unspeakable that being incest and it showed the instability of a young girl who really had some serious psychological issues.

I loved this film and I would love to see it again!

DH

xoxo