Black and White

Adelaide, Australia, 1958 and a 9 year-old girl is found brutally murdered and raped. The police quickly, perhaps a little too quickly, find a suspect: Max Stuart, a young illiterate and heavy drinking half-caste Aborigine man (Ngoombujarra – CROCODILE DUNDEE IN L.A.) from out of town who, once in custody, confesses to the crime. As it's a legal aid case Stuart is appointed lawyers in the shape of local team Carlyle (THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH, FULL MONTY) and Fox (THE GATHERING, THE POINT MEN). Prosecuting is arrogant, experienced and privileged-class Crown Solicitor Dance (ALIEN 3, LAST ACTION HERO). Stuart's story is that he is innocent and that the police beat the confession out of him, but faced with a bigoted community and the overwhelming skill and legal connections of Dance's character, the odds prove too overwhelming for the young, inexperienced duo.

Stuart is predictably found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

Carlyle's character however does not give up that easily and, helped in his quest by the prison priest (Friels – DARK CITY, THE MAN WHO SUED GOD) and a young newspaper publisher called Rupert Murdoch (Mendelsohn – VERTICAL LIMIT), he continues to discover new evidence and witnesses, and proceeds through the hierarchy of appeal procedures, ultimately speaking before the Lord Privvy Council in London, resulting in seven stays of execution over the following year.

Based on real events, this is a well put together movie featuring a classic underdog vs. establishment scenario, not just in Stuart, who is regarded as just an ignorant savage by 1959 white Australian society, but also in Carlyle's lawyer who is thwarted at every turn by an archaic legal system and a superior foe, and who is risking his reputation and livelihood in the pursuit of justice. The film makes no final judgement and presents both sides of the case equally leaving the audience to come to their own verdict. The audience will of course take the side of the underdogs, but there is an unnerving dénouement where we catch up with the real Max Stuart who makes a very ambiguous comment on his innocence.

The era is well captured and the acting is solid throughout, though the characters are rather obviously drawn.

Not worth owning but well worth a watch.

A half-caste aborigine in 1950s Australia is sentenced to death on little more than racist supposition over the rape and murder of a young girl. Penniless and inexperienced good-guy lawyers, Robert Carlyle and Kerry Fox, go up against the system to save the man's neck from the gallows. David Ngoombujarra, as the half-caste, turns in a moving performance, the story has sufficient emotional pace, legal twists and unusual setting, yet for some reason manages to peter down like a wet squib. The climax doesn't seem to do the rest of the film justice, and the reminder that it is based on true events comes too late (at the very end of the credits) to have the proper impact. Black and White is an interesting film, but more of a near miss than a resounding success.

South Australian lawyers still argue passionately about the guilt or innocence or Rupert Maxwell Stuart.

A young white girl was brutally raped and murdered.

A part-Aboriginal man was accused. He was drunk (and, by admission, lust filled) at the time the offence occurred.

At the time, the commission of such an offence would have seen Stuart swinging at the end of a rope.

Enter Robert Carlile (playing David O'Sullivan) and Kery Fox (Helen Devaney) his impoverished lawyers, passionate, and alcoholic respectively.

This is the story of how this unlikely (and tragic, for O'Sullivan and Fox, in real life, self-destructed soon afterwards) worked day and night to save Stuart from the gallows.

Instrumental in this was the young Rupert Murdoch (Ben Mendelson) and the Priest Father Tom Dixon.

The point of all this is not Stuart's guilt or innocence. It is about O'Sullivan and Fox, and their 15 minutes of fame. It is about Murdoch, and the ways in which the press influences criminal justice (there were two South Australian hangings after the Stuart case), reported, by Murdoch's "The News" in sober and pro-government terms.

For those reasons, as an examination of long ago attitudes, and of issues of press influence, this is an important film.

A great movie? Probably not? Consider the following. When Murdoch sits down with the defence team to discuss his proposed press campaign for a reprieve, and is told that if the public will not warm to Stuart's case and Murdoch will not personally intervene, "a man will die".

Murdoch replies, "then a man will die!".

This not a movie about Stuart and Chamberlain; it's about O'Sullivan, Cox, Murdoch and the media. It's about hard-working lawyers and cynical Newspapermen. And on that level, it succeeds.

I came across this one accidentally, and I'm very glad that I did. This is very much an attempt to make an historical document - it is along the same lines as rabbit proof fence, instead focusing on the ridiculously prejudiced and stunted legal system that Australia was so proud of during the 'white Australia' policy years. Every branch of police and court were determined to hide each others mistakes and inequalities because it was simply easier to condemn our own mistakes - if it is believed that all black fellas are inherently flawed, even evil, then it is so much easier to not feel guilty about what we did.

That being said, the production values are so high in this film that one never gets the sense that it is preaching or unnecessarily hammering the audience with the all the guilt of the white man in Australia. The story came through sufficiently, and there were fascinating links to all kinds of branches of Australian life - the turn of public opinion against the death penalty, Rupert Murdoch learning the value of politics over helping out the ordinary man, the idea of 'Englishness' in the colonial nation - and best of all, a wonderful interview with the condemned man himself, still alive despite all the odds.

Highly recommended.

The world of the movie is one of the few areas where Australians care to face up to their unjust and brutal treatment of the Aboriginie. This movie is based on a disturbingly recent true story and is brilliantly understated. One never feels one knows what really happened, but the legal processes are a shocking inditment of racial prejudice and power politics. Even today Australia still struggles to come to grips with this shameful side of their past. Black and White should be seen in every Australian household as similar events almost certainly still go on today in the far flung reaches of this vast land mass. Highly recommended. (Available on dvd in Australia.)