Australian director
Bill Bennett sets this exploration of sexual politics and cultural differences against the stunning vistas of the Trobriand Islands. In it, two anthropologists travel to a remote island in the South Pacific to study its culture in the 1930s. Evelyn (
Maya Stange) is an adventurous free thinker, while her husband Phillip (
Martin Donovan) is a rigid scholar bound to convention and propriety. Tension develops between the couple when Phillip fails to acknowledge what Evelyn sees as obvious: that women run this lusty culture. Tensions are upped another notch when Evelyn falls for Mick (
Rufus Sewell), a macho American pearl merchant. As Evelyn's life begins to crash in around her, the Japanese army invades her island paradise and tragedy strikes her priggish husband.
In a Savage Land was screened at the 1999
Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide