Review: Jennifer Kent's 'The Nightingale' is a brilliant, horrifying tale of revenge

In "The Nightingale," an infuriating, devastating saga of retribution and survival from the Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent, the horrors of European colonialism are etched into every frame.

We are in 19th century Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, in the early days of a conflict that wiped out most of the island's indigenous population. Against a wilderness backdrop of astonishing violence, an Irish-born woman named Clare (Aisling Franciosi) and an Aboriginal man named Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) are forced into this movie's harsh and unforgiving spotlight, forging an uneasy alliance in the pursuit of justice.

It is justice that has ostensibly brought Clare to this small penal colony in the first place. Exiled after being convicted of petty theft seven years ago in her native