I don't know if the film maker meant to delve deeper into our psyches than just showcase racism, or not. But this film, in its slow camera panning does just that.
Aggression. The innate aggression that sits inside humanity drawn from our fears, our skewed beliefs, our ignorance and our sense of entitlement, aggression is what I got from this film.
It doesn't matter to most people how we treat animals, gender or people of other colour but the issue is an all round one, not separate in any way or sense although it's taking people a long, long time to join the dots.
From the terror of a bullock newly castrated without anaesthetic (of course that's the 'normal' way in all cultures, but look at that animal's eyes and see the lack of knowing why it's just been abused,) to the passive nature of horses being run around deserts with ugly, yelling, angry and foolish men barely supplying them with enough water, to the still very wild men performing rituals and ready to capture a black man or woman of different tribe and probably kill them or enslave them, to the white bar maid, enslaved in her own way and miserable yet possibly unaware of anything more than searing unhappiness, the broken, trapped black men and the boy who do whatever it takes to survive the bewilderment of white man's world, the post traumatic madness of returned soldiers who have fought in other men's wars and gone quite mad and the ready rape and exploitation of black women who can't find their voice.
The aggression portrayed brilliantly and the subsequent shutting down/fear/rage/finger-pointing/ignorance and lack of acceptance/kindness/compassion does not make this feel long, or boring or stupid, as some reviews are quick to mention, I suppose in the high hope that Australia's history might be portrayed in ridiculous spaghetti western fashion.
Everyone, every single individual in this movie is unhappy. They work on a hard land, their lives are bare and soiled, they never wash and their ability to communicate is close to nil. Don't be put off, however, it's worth the watch if you know that it has a point. And it does. Sadly, to this day, much of this behaviour, only now we take showers, is highly prevalent in Australia, whether Australians like to believe it or not.
The ending is most apt. Indeed, too many people in this country still have no idea who Aboriginal people are and they still behave either ignorantly or moronically toward what they perceive are our First Nation peoples.
This film is an important study of how the separation here is not allowing us to heal as a nation or to move forward into a culture of more than football and beer, but to remain sadly, and I hate to say this, trapped, not entirely but on a large scale, in a kind of immature blundering that stops us claiming greatness as a nation and as collective people who can remove their very, very long term racist issues. This is further fostered by our politicians, who keep this land in a permanent state of divide and conquer. Australia is a fantastic nation but it is lame and limping. This movie declares, if you care to see it, some of wreckage that white settlement has left behind.
From the terror of a bullock newly castrated without anaesthetic (of course that's the 'normal' way in all cultures, but look at that animal's eyes and see the lack of knowing why it's just been abused,) to the passive nature of horses being run around deserts with ugly, yelling, angry and foolish men barely supplying them with enough water, to the still very wild men performing rituals and ready to capture a black man or woman of different tribe and probably kill them or enslave them, to the white bar maid, enslaved in her own way and miserable yet possibly unaware of anything more than searing unhappiness, the broken, trapped black men and the boy who do whatever it takes to survive the bewilderment of white man's world, the post traumatic madness of returned soldiers who have fought in other men's wars and gone quite mad and the ready rape and exploitation of black women who can't find their voice.
The aggression portrayed brilliantly and the subsequent shutting down/fear/rage/finger-pointing/ignorance and lack of acceptance/kindness/compassion does not make this feel long, or boring or stupid, as some reviews are quick to mention, I suppose in the high hope that Australia's history might be portrayed in ridiculous spaghetti western fashion.
Everyone, every single individual in this movie is unhappy. They work on a hard land, their lives are bare and soiled, they never wash and their ability to communicate is close to nil. Don't be put off, however, it's worth the watch if you know that it has a point. And it does. Sadly, to this day, much of this behaviour, only now we take showers, is highly prevalent in Australia, whether Australians like to believe it or not.
The ending is most apt. Indeed, too many people in this country still have no idea who Aboriginal people are and they still behave either ignorantly or moronically toward what they perceive are our First Nation peoples.
This film is an important study of how the separation here is not allowing us to heal as a nation or to move forward into a culture of more than football and beer, but to remain sadly, and I hate to say this, trapped, not entirely but on a large scale, in a kind of immature blundering that stops us claiming greatness as a nation and as collective people who can remove their very, very long term racist issues. This is further fostered by our politicians, who keep this land in a permanent state of divide and conquer. Australia is a fantastic nation but it is lame and limping. This movie declares, if you care to see it, some of wreckage that white settlement has left behind.