Munted

Set in the early 1960s Munted is an unusual film that tells the story of a mother who returns to retrieve Katrina, her almost feral daughter, from her sister’s farm. When it is evident that her sister is not going to give the child up, the mother’s attention is drawn to the child’s strange relationship with a brain-damaged botanical artist who rents a small cottage on the property.

Across the years of her childhood Katrina has befriended this man.

The artist, who can barely speak, paints delicate if somewhat discordant pictures of the world that surrounds him and it is via these that the story is told. For the first part of the film we are not sure of the safety of their relationship, but following a revelation, we see the cost of rumour on the innocence of their world. As an accusation of pedophilia takes hold the film builds to a dramatic and unforgiving climax.