Nick Cave’s tough proposition

“What fresh hell is this?” mutters a character early on in “The Proposition,” and that succinctly sums up the film.

Written and directed by Nick Cave, “The Proposition” can best be described as an existential western set in late 1800s Australia. This is not a cheery, shrimp-on-the-barbie vision of the outback. It is bleak, bloody, covered in flies, and so grim it makes Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” look like a comedy by comparison.

Still, you can’t take your eyes away from it.

Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) and his little brother Mikey (Richard Wilson) are part of the murderous Burns gang, wanted for the slaughter of a local family. When they are captured, the world-weary Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone) sees a solution that may save more bloodshed.

Stanley offers to let Charlie go, but he must find and kill his older brother Arthur by Christmas, which is nine days away. If he does not succeed, the hapless Mikey will be hanged.

Charlie seems to be as weary of killing as Stanley, so he heads out across some spectacular country in search of his brother. Stanley has sworn his men to secrecy about the deal he has fashioned, but word leaks out and he must confront angry townsfolk hungry for vengeance, including his own dainty wife Martha (Emily Watson).

Arthur Burns (Danny Huston, last seen in “The Constant Gardener”) is an interesting villain ? capable of viciously slaughtering strangers but also fiercely devoted to family, poetry and sunsets.

The performances are as spare and gritty as the landscape, and the story leaves many unanswered questions. You wish you understood more about the relationship between the Aborigines and the white men, not to mention that between Stanley and his wife ? why they left England, what hidden sorrow is behind their sad faces, and the fresh hell that is yet to come.