Charlie's Country

An aging Indigenous hunter goes about his daily business (David Gulpilil as Charlie), peacefully reacting to impositions which have radically transformed his life.

He remembers the old school ways dating back for many a millennia, and is somewhat vexed by colonial laws which often prohibit related freedoms.

Regulations manage so much of what he's traditionally trying to do, that it's like his way of life's been outlawed to his habitual astonishment.

He makes a reasonable case simply stating that it's his land, simply being annoyed by the lack of work or the lack of interest in his culture.

While viewing the film and intently listening to his passionate music, it seemed like a monstrously depressing  history, that there was so much spiritual harmony to be freely nurtured that was generally overlooked by covetous Europeans.

Imagine free spiritual exchanges had won the day with interactive correspondence respectfully matriculating, and these songs and dances were also consistent components of the greater Australian (or Canadian) scene.

And that the cultures were really interacting with mutual respect across the land. And there had never been any lost generations. No chilling grand historical barbarism.

That's the problem with uniform exposition it antiseptically sterilizes so much life, and takes vast vivacious versatile vistas and obtusely replaces them with bland monotony.

It's not even that bland monotony should be overlooked if anything it should be give a different label, and treated with mutual respect that doesn't enrage its anger-prone proponents (note: Russia is invading other countries again and Italy just elected a government that reveres Mussolini).

If one ring rules them all it really does bind them in darkness, with no grand multivariable recourse sleep takes hold with soporific blindness.

I just sort of like trying this and that there are so many different styles available out there, it's as simple as flipping through channels on the TV, or just surfing around on the radio.

I had developed this latently in my youth but Montréal really helped it bloom, I can't think of a better place in Canada and Québec to learn to ensconce yourself in diversity.

Charlie just wants to peacefully live according to the ways his people have for millennia, and while attempting to confidently do so, keeps running into violence.

This leads to a sense of desperation which is worst case if treated with alcohol.

Would you understand if someone took your country away?

Why do you expect Indigenous Peoples to?

The Tracker

*Spoiler Alert.

I'm unaware of another director who critiques patriarchal excesses as well as Rolf de Heer, I'm thinking of Alexandra's Project and The Tracker, wherein which he holds nothing back in his critique of men.

Not men in general or every man but definitely racist and sexist men who go to extremes, in The Tracker's case a rifle toting lawperson who shoots every Indigenous person he sees (regardless of whether they're the one he's searching for), including women and the elderly, and in Alexandra's Project, a lusty husband who gets outduelled through passionate disillusionment.

Most of the men I've met haven't been quite as arrogant as the jerks in Heer's films, not that they don't like to have a laugh or air grievances (you really shouldn't try to take away or prohibit the means by which decent men let off steam regarding relationships [it leads to naturally angry people who don't want to change becoming more and more furious because they have no outlet for their frustrations {which aren't even that serious if the outlet exists unless they're extremists, but become much more intense if severely limited }]), but I picture them discussing other things besides sex and gender roles with their wives (especially after this long), and doubt they would take their prejudices to genocidal extremes (most of them were pretty chill back in the day).

In The Tracker, 4 men set out to find an Indigenous person in the Outback who's accused of killing a caucasian woman, one of them a multifaceted guide (David Gulpilil as the Tracker), one ruthlessly dismissive of Native culture (Gary Sweet as the Fanatic), another young and new to the territory (Damon Gameau as The Follower), and another just along for the ride (Grant Page as the Veteran). 

The Tracker mischievously leads them in the right direction at a slower pace than the fugitive, so he (Noel Wilton) always knows where they are and they never brutally overtake him.

Early on during the search, they encounter free Indigenous peeps enjoying their day, and the mad institutionally supported leader starts firing shots with reckless abandon.

The young recruit is utterly horrified which leads the old timer to question his intelligence, I've said it before, I'll say it again, belligerent jingoism doesn't inevitably monopolize the constructive mind. 

It certainly didn't in the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s when many films like this were being made, but it's become much more fashionable these days, with World War III looming on the horizon (after a pandemic [pass the Ricard]).

If you want to see a Native person fight back and courageously strike a blow for his resilient culture, The Tracker is indubitably a must-see, fully equipped with Indigenous justice.

The trigger happy lawperson is captured because his youthful charge refuses to let him shoot innocent people.

And this youth's generation likely brought about the reforms of my youth.

Which have stalled amidst a colossal prejudiced backlash. 

Ten Canoes

Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr's 2006 film Ten Canoes is a playful piece of pastoral filmmaking. It's the first Australian film to be shot entirely in Indigenous languages (the Ganalbingu primarily) and every aspect of the production was assisted by Aboriginal guidance. Shot entirely on location in the Arafura Swamp of Arnhem Land, north of Darwin, near the village of Ramingining, Ten Canoes presents an introduction to one of Australia's ancestral Aboriginal legends. Two stories work hand in hand throughout: that of a modern day traditional hunt for the eggs of the magpie goose and that of an ancient legend concerning a brother who falls in love with the youngest of his older brother's three wives. Both stories combine to form a leisurely yet comprehensive geographical and cultural account of the people within Australia's Arnhem land. The light-hearted narrator's mirth complements the territory nicely, as we're introduced to a tribal way of life as told from their own points of view. We get to witness the construction of canoes, the collection of the magpie goose's eggs, and the creation of a campsite within waterlogged trees, built to avoid hungry crocodiles. Hopefully, the DVD contains a thirty-to-sixty minute making-of-feature that chronicles what it was like to film amidst such terrain; something akin to Les Blank's Burden of Dreams. Ten Canoes unravels like a comfortable tale quaintly woven at twilight in front of the coruscating waves of a quiescent campfire. Come for the story, stay for the legend, note how the characters chide one another about crocodiles, and enjoy the introduction to a traditional way of life.