Kill the PM – Unhappen

Overview

Since Tony Abbott was elected Prime Minister last year, I can count on one hand the number of my acquaintances who have not, at one point or another, volunteered an elaborate or brazenly carnage-laden scheme for offing him (the pacifists outlined similarly detailed plans to emigrate). While these threats are in no way credible, they’re not exactly the idle grumblings of voters whose home team has been banished to opposition, either. They are products of the worst kind of political disaffection, that which breeds apathy and disinterest rather than incisive and reasoned opposition.

Kill the PM, written by Fregmonto Stokes and directed by James Dalton for Unhappen, imagines a group of young, naive and poorly organised extremists railing against this sluggish political atmosphere in the most radical way possible. Debates about political assassination generally focus on the morality of killing one person for the benefit of many. The quandary here, though, is whether it can ever be morally acceptable to murder a head of state that the many actually voted for.

The set, despite being attributed to Dylan Tonkin, looks like it’s been erected by Dexter Morgan. Concrete walls and musty furniture are hazy behind sheets of plastic which hang from the ceiling or are draped carefully over objects which might later register fingerprints. The quiet menace of the space is enhanced by the dull reflected glare of industrial worklights.

Enter Pete (Michael McStay), Flick (Zoe Jensen), Naomi (Lily Newbury-Freeman) and eventually, Rowan (Nicholas Hiatt), four dissidents who have realised that the strongly worded letter isn’t quite the vehicle of political change they’d hoped it could be. Armed with a rifle, they intend to cast the ultimate vote of no confidence when the Prime Minister’s motorcade passes the building in an hour’s time.

The fact that there’s a traitor in their midst is the least of the group’s worries. From the moment we discover that the designated gunman is a schizophrenic acrobat in his pyjamas, we’re fairly sure that Our Glorious Leader is going to make it out in one piece. The murder plot becomes largely immaterial, though, as the second half moves to explore the unravelling of the conspirators themselves.

Reality quickly loses definition when word reaches that the Reptilians have begun their march on humankind. Through green smoke, the Pregnant Madonna is led away by the headsman and goannas casually munch the carrion of their own kind. Arresting visuals and an excellent sound design by Lucy Parakhina and James Brown, respectively, create a world which, though terrifying, is no more nonsensical or chaotic than the one we’ve just left. The narrative has evaporated but the imagery and the questions that remain are rich and challenging.

Kill the PM might sound like an exercise in coarse wish fulfilment, but whether you consider that a major selling point or a reason to decry it, know this: it isn’t. By refusing to provide an easy or coherent conclusion, Kill the PM proves its unwillingness to sink to the level of a revenge fantasy. It shows that both the problem and the solution are far too complex to be solved by a single gunshot.