‘Wolfram’ Review: Tough but Tender-Hearted Colonial-Era Australian Western Tracks a Family’s Efforts to Reunite

Set in early 1930s colonial Australia, in and around the fictional town of Henry, Warwick Thornton’s “Wolfram” is divided into four chapters, all taking place in the same tough and sparsely populated world as his 2017 Venice prizewinner “Sweet Country.” His latest is concerned with the subject of separation: of parents and children, of siblings from siblings, and, ultimately, of people from their own humanity.

The main structuring absence in the film is Pansy (Deborah Mailman) and her distance from her two preteen children, Max (Hazel May Jackson) and Kid (Eli Hart)..

Mailman’s small but pivotal role is emotionally restrained, and practically dialogue-free. Her key character trait is cutting pieces from her hair, weaving them into tokens, and attaching them to shrubs or fences in the wilderness: This is the only way she can leave a trace of her presence for the children from whom she has become separated.