The four-part SBS miniseries New Gold Mountain, like other recent neo-westerns including feature films Goldstone and The Furnace, captures the harsh beauty of Australian land but is narratively more interested in the consequences of capitalism’s compulsion to drain it of resources. These consequences can be personal, political, cultural, social, environmental. The show’s raison d’être also involves revisiting an important historical period from a non-white perspective, focusing on the Chinese community during the gold rush in the 1850s.
A text insert at the beginning of the first episode explains that “Gold Mountain” refers to the gold rush in California, which dried up before people moved to the “New” one down under. Created by Peter Cox and directed by Corrie Chen, the show is set in Ballarat in 1857, advantageously using the premade, movie set-like structures of Victorian tourist attraction Sovereign Hill to tell a story involving the morally ambiguous Wei Shing (Yoson An), who is a leader within the Chinese community.
Putting out various spot fires and dealing with challenges that require politician-like manoeuvring, Shing’s job is far from easy – and that’s before the body of a murdered Anglo woman is discovered, threatening to blow up an already volatile environment. It’s clear from the start that he’s a well-spoken man, careful with his words, greeting a police officer early on by noting: “I see your passion for justice has you here a day earlier than agreed.” To which the rather less cultivated cockney cop responds: “Imagine that’s why they call it a fuckin’ raid, innit?”
In upper-class white society we meet the owner of the Ballarat Times: a posh English woman named Belle Roberts (Alyssa Sutherland), who approaches Shing sharing plans to start a Chinese publication. Belle is one of several highly influential, robust female characters, including the ruthless and power-wielding Cheung Lei (Mabel Li) – an intimidating figure in the Chinese community – and young Indigenous tracker Hattie (Leonie Whyman). It would be interesting to read a historian’s perspective on female Indigenous trackers, given the consensus view that this was a role dominated by men.
There is a tension between a dramatist’s desire to depict historically neglected people who are strong and independent characters, while simultaneously acknowledging that they are caught in the maelstrom and injustices of the times – in this instance an extremely misogynistic colonial society under the rule of white men. Jennifer Kent achieved this resoundingly well in The Nightingale by rendering a burning rage and passion within a fully dimensional female protagonist, an Irish convict drawn to revenge through shocking injustice, balancing dramatic agency with uncompromising social commentary.
New Gold Mountain is a more sanitised impression of history: not politically pointy or confronting, and without a great interest in making explicit statements on subjects like sexism and racism. Some of the characters were inspired by historical figures but this is not a series that goes for realism per se; the tone is heightened drama rather than classroom textbook. Everything takes place on a stagey, at times almost histrionic level – evident in the amplified style of performances, Caitlin Yeo’s powerful and heavily used score, and the show’s intensely sculpted visuals.
In the press notes Chen discussed imbuing the series with an Asian cinematic sensibility, “leaning into the formalism of Chinese cinema and its symmetrical framing”. The eye-watering cinematography of Matt Temple also has elements of Frederick McCubbin paintings that depict human subjects as relatively small in the context of environmental aspects, but not entirely powerless or completely subjected to the whims of nature.
The writers resort to familiar devices to pry open access to their narrative – most obviously the central MacGuffin, in the form of a murder mystery: an evergreen narrative premise. There are also particular moments of dramatic imagery that are a little stale, or at least a little rote, such as an early scene involving a well-dressed woman walking by a body of water – a “never fails to look dramatic” technique mastered by Jane Campion, who threw in a piano to boot. New Gold Mountain’s bits-and-pieces screenplay is sprinkled with interesting moments, though no single narrative thread ever reaches its full potential.
And yet: at the end of each episode I was excited to return to this world, imagining exploring the settings for myself – walking past muddy claims with fossicking gold seekers, sticking my head into tents, trying to avoid latrines. Chen, whose oeuvre includes the comedy Homecoming Queens (one of my favourite Australian TV shows of 2018), does a beautiful job building out the show spatially, liberally using the “walk and talk” technique popularised by Aaron Sorkin and The West Wing. Here it is not just an interesting way to stage dialogue exchanges but comes with the added benefit of showing off period details and lush Australian locations.
Nobody has made this country’s equivalent of There Will be Blood yet, that brilliantly American portrait of great fortune at the expense of moral bankruptcy. But New Gold Mountain and the aforementioned films (Goldstone and The Furnace) move towards using gold and other natural resources as material for national parables – springboards to discuss wealth, greed, power, politics and the apocalyptic human tendency to dig up resources from the ground. In a world of information overload, where there is tendency to assume every story worth telling has already been told, Chen’s series reminds us this is far from true: history and culture, as always, is a matter of perspective.
• New Gold Mountain premieres on SBS on Wednesday 13 October 2021, and is available on SBS on Demand
