Australian Rules

I remember very clearly watching this movie as a kid in my lounge room and feeling a sadness I had never felt before. Maybe it was being in a close family then witnessing another family that is torn apart due to things I couldn't even understand yet. Racism, domestic violence, alcoholism, and simple stupidity and ignorance.

I remember feeling so bad that blacky could do little bout the events that unfold, the people and attitudes he has to deal with, and the painful sadness of being a big hearted person surrounded by people who don't understand him, and the ones who do also being victims of the lives they live.

This is a good movie, but it's not an easy watch. Tt has a truth and a straightforward nature you really only see in indies rather than the big budget movies. We also have a talent in Australia to make films that don't just have a set of convenient events that lead to a happier conclusion. It's simply life, in all its messiness and ugliness. I guess like blacky you just have to find the happiness any way you can.

Australia Rules begins like most sports movies. We follow a ramshackled team of underdogs as they prepare to play in the final of an Australian football match. However, the film quickly becomes a race drama showing the conflict in the team between the white and superior Aboriginal players, which manifests itself on the whole small town. We follow Blackie, played charismatic by Gary Black, whose best friend is Aborigine Dunby Red, the team's star player.

The film's topics are handled well, without dipping into cliché. The pacing of the film is excellent, showing how racial conflicts can escalate. However, the third act of the film lets it down. The film seems to be building to the race problem exploding, but instead fizzles out. The lack of conclusion is frustrating, although realistic.

The main problem is not so much that the film is bad. It's not. It just feels like it is going over similar ground to many films before. While always being enjoyable, it is never gripping. The direction by Goldman, particularly in the sports scenes, is very perfunctory.

I have just returned from an advanced preview screening of this powerful film and was happy to have the opportunity for a Q & A session with the three young stars of the film.

Aboriginal actress, Lisa Flanagan, was moved to tears as she spoke about the emotional turmoil that making this film caused her. Her mob is from South Australia and are closely linked to the real-life events on which this film is based.

Lisa is off to Edinburgh to promote the film in a few days.

Melbourne-born Nathan Phillips, who plays Blacky, was asked what he wanted audiences to get from the film. He pointed to Lisa and said "I want audiences to feel for even one minute the emotions you just saw from Lisa." And we do!

All three stars spoke of the film as a journey - and it is a journey well-worth experiencing.

Sydney indigenous actor Luke Phillips has plenty of TV experience but has made his first foray into feature films - and it won't be his last. A first-class performance!

International audiences have reported some problems in the early stages of the film understanding the local dialect and pronunciation but felt it was well worth the effort. I couldn't agree more. See it.

I should add that the film-makers did make attempts to discuss the film with the local indigenous communities. The cast even attempted to show them the script. For reasons of their own, maybe understandable, they didn't take that opportunity.

OK, being Aussie Rules, it's actually a game of four quarters, but let's come back to that. It drew on clear dramatic links with commedia dell'arte and ancient classical theatre, and the comedy masks of the first half were rapidly replaced by the tragedy masks of the second. It has its obvious connections with Romeo and Juliet / West Side Story, depicting a love affair across a supposedly unbridgeable divide, which survives despite the girls' brother/kinsman being murdered by a friend/kinsman of the boy, in this case his sadistic racist bully of a father.

The first half is pure Boy's Own book stuff. First quarter, the underdog footy team of a small coastal town on the Eyre Peninsula has just won its way through to the regional Grand Final despite the stupidity of its cardboard cut-out coach, and his mindless `tactics'. The Pantaloon clown act of old man Darcy links to the second quarter, the final itself, where the team's progress towards annihilation by brutally tough opponents is suddenly halted and reversed when the young hero Blacky (who is white) has his moment of inspired brilliance, in this case by listening to his footy-mad mum, who tells him to ignore the coach's directions. Yes, it's straight out of the comic books, with Thumper the opposing ruckman truly larger than life, and Pickle's incredible sheep-shagging imitation just one of many well-shot moments of slapstick visual comedy.

The underlying element of racial tension, whilst made plain in the first half, provides no real presentiment of how suddenly it is about to explode from the moment when rising footy star Dumby Red (who is aboriginal), clearly the best player on field in the final, is overlooked at the medal presentation in favour of the coach's uninspired and uninspiring son. The violent third quarter is where Blacky finds himself embarking upon his hero's journey, no less complicated by him also having to cope with a whole raft of strange new emotions in his innocent teenage romance with aboriginal girl Clarence. This comes as an equally sudden development, despite being semaphored like a goal umpire's flags, as one sees her transformed in a couple of brief shots from the nameless `girl from the mission' into the love of his life.

We shouldn't be too critical if the final quarter fails to bring any real resolution, and certainly no evidence of redemption, prior to the siren. Outside Hollywood that's what life is like. But at 95 minutes, the movie is not overly long, and another ten minutes of developing and rounding out characters and relationships, perhaps also at the expense of a couple of shots of first half slapstick, might have helped. I'd like to have seen a couple more minutes given to a sensitive handling of the recognition and communication of mutual boy-girl attraction, and some dimension given to the aggressive black activist, whom I found to be another cardboard cut-out, merely remaining in the same peripheral category as the racist publican, played by `Beau'.

I came out of `The Tracker' feeling breathless at what I had just seen. I came out of `Aussie Rules' thinking I was glad I'd seen it, but that whilst they had kicked a good few goals, they also hit the post a couple of times (explanation for non-Aussies: hitting the post scores just one point, whilst a goal, if you kick the ball clean through between the main goal posts, scores six).

I gave it 7/10, and might well raise that to 8 on a second viewing.

it's been a long time since i've posted a review. i didn't think i needed to. but this film makes me think otherwise.

Australian Rules is a small film. Even by Australian standards. Yet I think it is a highly important film.

It is understandable that the local Aboriginal community may not have wanted to participate in this production. It was probably too close for comfort.

The first part of the film is the carefree, commedic and spirited aspect. It showed signs of the signature Australian 90s filmmaking, the quirky, commedic and feel good type of movie. Then it moves onto the tragic and the dramatic. I think the latter is far more interesting and I am glad that the new wave of Australian filmmaking are concentrating on these aspects (Lantana, Rabbit Proof Fence, Till Human Voices Wake Us).

Australian Rules is a sensitive film. It deals with contentious issues and things we would probably rather not know about. This film has a social conscience and is extremely relevant in this day and age to Australia.

Everyone was great in it. From the coach, to the racist 'manly' father, to Blacky, to Clarence to Dumbie and even Pickles. Special mention to Blacky's mother, the intelligent, wise (and football fanatic) woman who still puts up with her husband's abuse but like Blacky, seems to be above her company.

More people should see this film. Especially Australians.