Charlie's Country

At the heart of Charlie's Country, the third collaboration between Dutch-Australian director Rolf de Heer and his co-writer and famed aboriginal star David Gulpipil is an engaging and compelling performance from the latter filmed on location in the Australia's Northern Territory. Gulpipil, with his weathered features and charismatic presence is forever watchable, especially in the first half of the film, which is mainly located around "his country" on the peripheries of a remote community. It is here where we find him at the film's outset experiencing a kind of indigenous "mature life crisis".

Charlie is becoming increasingly unhappy with his position in the community. Fed up by the demands and expectations created by the continual "humbugging"of himself by extended family and community members, he finds he gets short shrift from government employees, when seeking assistance (in the form of a house mind you). He also feels his personal liberties are being infringed upon by laws and regulations he doesn't fully understand and certainly hasn't consented to, imposed by the mainstream white culture, which also fails to give him due credit for the services he provides in the form of requested tracking tasks and hunting advice. He decides to leave the community and go and live traditionally in his country by himself, but naturally things don't necessarily turn out as planned.

Gulpipil has said the story he wrote with de Heer is semi-biographical, being based on his experiences living in and around the filming locations, which by the way, are wonderfully captured through the lens of cinematographer Ian Jones. That may be so, but as one who has actually lived and worked in these same communities for a good part of my life, I found the continual depiction of stereotypical racist and near-racist behaviour by the white supporting characters both tiresome, factually incorrect and very much an indictment of lazy writing on the part of de Heer and Gulpipil, especially considering the story is well and truly set in contemporary Australia.

de Heer has a long tradition of featuring racist bullying policeman in his indigenous-focused films and he carries on the tradition in Charlie's Country, where we see the local police in Charlie's community, as well as in Darwin, the capital city, barely hiding their contempt for those of indigenous background. However completely disregarded is that the police force these days has a significant aboriginal component itself, especially notable in remote communities. Ludicrously, we even have one of the cops from Charlie's remote community, played by Luke Ford, magically pop up in Darwin hundreds of kilometres away, so he can violently arrest Charlie and reinforce again these aggressive racial undertones.

Similarly the derogatory language and behaviours displayed unilaterally by the doctors, judges and public servants (apart from a solitary female social worker) put the lie to any cultural awareness programs continually adopted and implemented by members of those professions and by and large valued by Australian society.

This is a movie which whilst imparting an important tale worthy of attention, utilises absolutely no finesse in many characterisations. There are no greys, no degrees of ambivalence. Every thing is unfortunately just black and white, where the white is seen as overbearingly oppressive and both uncaring and damaging of the black culture. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Albeit I am bias toward Australian tales of it's indigenous mob. This move is a very well done story of an Aboriginal mans trials and tribulations of life in a white mans world. Well worth the watch!

Aboriginal Australian dancer David Gulpilil has appeared in a number of movies over the years: "Walkabout", "The Last Wave", "Crocodile Dundee" and "Rabbit-Proof Fence" are among his most famous roles. His performance as the titular character in Rolf de Heer's "Charlie's Country" might get remembered as his most important role. Gulpilil plays a Yolngu man living on a reservation with a collection of other Aborigines. Even though the army doesn't enter the area to mow people down, it's still impossible for the people on this reservation to live traditionally, as the police confiscate any possession deemed to be a weapon. So then Charlie decides to move out into the bush to live how he wants.

"Charlie's Country" will likely be the only Yolngu-language movie that you will ever see. In fact, it's the first movie that I've ever seen spoken mainly in an indigenous Australian language. The presence of words adopted from English is an ever present example of how much Australia's white population has impacted the indigenous population.

The movie should serve as a reminder of how Australia's indigenous population lives. Once the island's only inhabitants, they're now 1% of the country's population (but 40% of the prison population). Unemployment and alcoholism are rampant - Charlie even mentions how the white people introduced alcohol and ganja to the Aborigines - and it was only in the last decade that Australia's government offered an official apology for stealing Aboriginal children to get raised as servants for white people. Really good movie.

Dutch Australian film director Rolf de Heer take a look of the years running problems of Aboriginal Australians in his last movie Charlie's Country which is shown in many festivals around world. We see the problems caused by two sides from the eyes of an old and stubborn member of Aborigins, Charlie who feels like a outlander on his own lands.

Charlie can't accept being assimilated or living like how white Australians impose with the help of his stubborn and shrewd character. With the stunning performance of David Gulpilil Charlie represents all his nation with his riots, outcries, falls and obedience. He makes same mistakes that his nation did but also resists to forget his roots deep in the lands. He is driven away from his village to wild, from there to the big cities and it's crowd and chaos. It takes time for him to accept that this land is same land he loves with every living on it even it has changed.

Director's style resembles our Cannes awarded director Nuri Bilge Ceylan with long cuts and silent scenes. Showing same scenes in different spirits and witnessing alteration of Charlie in these scenes can be boring. And yet this style of filming helps a lot to feel the characters and their states better and deeper. Audiences feel all strugglings of all Aborigins from the eyes of Charlie.

Fortunately de Heer was in theater for answering questions of us. His care to Aborigins impressed me and hearing all questions about Aborigins proved that he did really good job in his movie with making a difference for Indigenous Australians in the eyes of everyone who watched the movie. That means shooting the target you aimed. I hope it will not take centuries to solve all issues in Australia as he said.

This movie provides an insight into a world that is difficult for many people to see or understand. The film is beautifully shot, and the scenes and sounds of Australia are magical. The acting is first rate, and the script is very clever. Many of the things Charlie says to European Australians don't make much sense, but in this movie we are able to understand what Charlie is thinking when he says these things, and so we understand perfectly what is meant by every sentence he utters. The sense of longing, and of loneliness is palpable, as is the passionate love of country. The dance scenes with the children are uplifting and lovely. This is a moving and beautiful film, and a huge bridge for building understanding and empathy for a different and valuable culture.