The Book of Revelation: othering the centre

The Book of Revelation: othering the centre

This chapter is focused on Kokkinos’ most controversial film, The Book of Revelation (2006). In this chapter I, with Sharon Bickle, am interested in the depiction of the film's protagonist Daniel, who, as a successful white hetero-masculine man is the only hegemonic protagonist of Kokkinos’ oeuvre. It is therefore interesting that he is also the only protagonist that does not witness traumatic social injustice but is instead the victim of it. We argue that Daniel’s abduction and torture disorientates him so profoundly that is forcibly recast as an outsider to his own life—he changes his name and leaves his previous job, house, partner, and profession on his release from capture. Moreover, where Head On focused on or ‘centred’ a marginalised character or ‘Other’, we argue that The Book of Revelation can be read as the reverse: as ‘othering’ the standard hero of much Australian cinema, namely the white, heterosexual, Anglo-Irish man (Seco 2008). We examine how this occurs through a re-writing of the rape-revenge genre and conclude by exploring a reading of the film as a violent rejection of masculinist Australian film mythologies.