“Big Brother is watching you” is a sentence we have been hearing often since the 1980s. And what first started as an anti-government pseudo-paranoic conspiracy now is more than evident and even proved. Because not only do the governments know almost everything about us, what we do, what we like, who we get in touch with, but also the big corporations are constantly spying on us and using all that data for advertisement. So that science-fiction concept is now a reality, either you like it or not, but still, fiction can be a little further. Will reality end up catching up? Well, only time will say.
Lone Wolf (2021) is set in a near-future Melbourne marked by state corruption and constant surveillance, where a group of small-time activists hatches a plan to commit a “victimless atrocity”. Conrad and Winnie live with the latter’s brother, Stevie, above a struggling underground bookshop. Managing this establishment is not their only occupation, however: both also engage in small-time activism and civil disobedience. But when Conrad is tasked with spearheading an act of urban terrorism, an unforeseen outcome and the involvement of police and state officials complicate this seemingly innocuous PR stunt.
The movie is inspired by Joseph Conrad‘s 1907 novel The Secret Agent, which already had the film adaptations Sabotage (1936) and The Secret Agent (1996). Based on made up of images from hidden cameras, phone taps, Skype sessions, and other Australian-government surveillance footage, Lone Wolf (2021) is a visually inventive political thriller that comments on data privacy, police powers, technology, corruption, and crime, a gritty story of trapped, disempowered individuals struggling against a system that protects itself at the expense of its own citizens.
Lone Wolf (2021) has been written and directed by Jonathan Ogilvie, known for The Tender Hook (2008), and Emulsion (2006), and nominated for the Palme d’Or with his short films This Film Is a Dog (1996) and Despondent Divorcee (1995) at the Cannes Film Festival.
The main cast for the film is formed by Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Josh McConville, Chris Bunton, Diana Glenn, Marlon Williams, Stephen Curry, Lawrence Mooney, and Hugo Weaving as the Police Minister.
Lone Wolf (2021) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam where it was nominated for the Big Screen Award. This month had its theatrical release in Australia and this past weekend limited in the USA. Watch here its official trailer.
