Cane Toads: The Conquest

Mark Lewis’s film is a re-working of his 1988 documentary, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. Like that film, whilst giving us the broad facts of the beastly invasion, the tone is tongue-in-cheek. It is not so much that the toad is comical but rather that the human response to it is, be it for or against, the slimy critter.

Whilst, of course, depicting the unprepossessing creatures in situ, Lewis uses an entertaining combination of to-camera addresses from a assortment of interviewees, re-creations of related incidents, archival footage, and graphic enhancements to tell the story of how the cane toad has worked its way from the Eastern seaboard to the West Australian border despite all efforts to stop it. The irony is, as one boffin points out, that the toads don't even eat the weevil that they were imported to stop.

Although.a few toads, like Daisy Queen, do emerge as individual subjects, the real stars of the film are the people Lewis interviews. Of course this comes in part down to a judicious editorial hand but whether it’s a couple relating the story of how their dog bit a toad and became brain-damaged or the fellow who had the entrepreneurial inspiration of building a Travelling Toad Show (it never took off), Cane Toads: The Conquest is a cornucopia of Australian charm at its most quirky and at times, quite bizarre.

It is a bit of a misnomer to call Cane Toads: The Conquest a documentary. Real as the facts are, it at times feels more like a mockumentary. Either way, it is easily the best Aussie comedy since Kenny. Ecological catastrophe has never been so funny.

FYI: The film is being touted as the first independently financed Australian documentary to be shot with digital 3D. Why 3D is not apparent as bar a predictable opening shot of a toad leaping into the camera lens there is no real use made of the technology and more often than not it is simply annoying. So if you have a choice, see the 2D version instead.  

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