Charlie's Country

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!

Australia's official submission into this year's Best Foreign Language category at the Academy Awards, famed director Rolf de Heer's raw, uncompromising and impressively beautiful film is easily the most accomplished and important tale to come from our shores in quite some time and acts as a very personal journey for one of our country's most recognisable actors, David Gulpilil.

To understand the power of Charlie's Country and the telling nature of its tale, one must look into how the film eventuated and what it harboured for Gulpilil in particular. Despite his success as an actor that started off in Nic Roeg's Walkabout in 1971, Gulpilil had found himself on hard times, the victim as sadly many indigenous people face in the country of alcohol abuse that saw him incarcerated in a federal penitentiary. Friends for many years after their collaborations in 2002's The Tracker and 2006's Ten Canoes (Australian film's worthy of being tracked down) de Heer visited Gulpilil in jail where the seeds of Charlies Country were formed when Gulpilil expressed a great desire to once more work with his friend and director. From there a story that was close to Gulpilil's heart began to be formed and it's where the quiet understated power of de Heer's work stems from.

With a mere look, or with the camera following his every move through the vast beauty of the Australian outback or the more scary surrounds of Darwin, Gulpilil commands the screen and de Heer controls this wonderfully, not at all afraid to let Gulpilil's face tell us all we need to know. In what is undoubtedly a match between the actor and the real man, Gulpilil inhabits this man Charlie with a grace and understanding as he struggles to come to grips with his mother country slowly but surely coming under more influence from the white man. This small scale story of one man's trials and tribulations masks a much larger overall problem Australia has at its core regarding the treatment of our indigenousness people and a failure to properly combine the old and the new without losing the connection to the land and customs that for thousands of years have been integral to the culture of these people. All these elements within Charlie's Country play out in such a manner that never becomes overbearing, for there is subtle humour here (water buffalo anyone?) and grace from all involved that gives Charlie's Country not only a heart but a recognisable humanity.

It shouldn't be surprising that Charlie's Country is a finely crafted and effective movie, for de Heer has long shown his ability to create memorably moving films and his previous collaborations with Gulpilil are some of the finest ever made in this country concerning indigenous culture. From Gulpilil's award worthy turn (which was rewarded with a Best Actor win at this year's Cannes Un Certain Regard festival), Graham Tardif's beautiful piano score and de Heers professional direction, this is Australian filmmaking and storytelling at its best and a moving portrait of modern day life in the harsh realities of the outback and the lives our indigenous people live in particular.

4 and a half hand crafted spears out of 5

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.

I love this film. First I loved 'The Tracker' because at last the indigenous man is not a victim or worse, a joke. Now comes Charlie's Country. To Australians the very word 'country'signifies the relationship of indigenous Australians to their country. To an international audience I wish to say this: to me a sign of true art is that there are moments of transcendence. Times when it is impossible to connect rational dots any more. Life flows. Then we awaken from this willing trance and watch superb film making happening, telling a real story, not some bullshit story but real, y' know people, my people. In this Rolf de Heer & David Gulpilil have created a play of universality, the essence of being human will be recognised by any viewer especially those who have experienced how devastatingly concrete the raw use of State power is upon an individual; let alone an individual from a totally different culture, a living culture. Welcome to the new world order. And gratitude to these two men who created this film.

Director Rolf de Heer who also created another classic aboriginal cultural issues flick, Ten Canoes 2006 plus other classic flicks, Bad Boy Bubby 1993 and Dance Me to My Song 1998 has created another gem in Charlie's Country.

Starring David Gulpilil who has been in other classic aboriginal cultural issues flicks, Walkabout 1971, Rabbit-Proof Fence 2002 and Dead Heart 1996 and other classic flicks, Mad Dog Morgan 1976, The Right Stuff 1983, Dark Age 1987 and The Proposition 2005.

Also starring Luke Ford who has been in other classic television series, Bikie Wars: Brothers in Arms 2012 and a series of Underbelly 2008-2013.

I enjoyed the realistic portrayal of day to day life.

If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic aboriginal cultural issues flicks, Mad Bastards 2010, Mystery Road 2013, Sweet Country 2017 and Toomelah 2011.