Monday 22nd August




Movie - !0 Canoes

 

The film title Ten Canoes came up a few times in class, then after reading some good reviews and being told by a few people that the film was definitely worth watching, decided to give it a go. Initially I thought the film was a documentary and was not thrilled at the prospect of viewing it. However, what I discovered instead, was a deeply human and legendary Aborigine folk tale, which combined anthropology, adventure and comedy to deliver its message. It was hilariously funny, but had a moral to the story with which everyone can relate.

Ten Canoes is based on an ancient story of a commune of Aboriginal people in and around the wetlands of central Arnhem Land centuries before European settlement. In part, the film was motivated by a photograph taken by legendary anthropologist David Thompson on one of his exhibitions during 1936-37 of the Yolgnu people to document their traditional ways. The photograph illustrates a group of 10 naked men standing in 10 canoes making their way through thick swamp land hunting for goose eggs. The film goes on to tell the tale of a young man who coverts the youngest wife of his brother who is an elder. During this hunt the elder tells his younger brother needs to be taught a lesson of a similar story of their ancestors and how the situation was handled in order to avoid tribal law being broken. The film moves easily between colour and black and white to represent the two time periods, being ten thousand years ago and many hundreds of years ago. The rich story-telling and beautiful landscape are luminous and humbling.

In one report I read by the Sydney Morning Herald,  Byrnes reports: “Part of the reason that black culture remains so mysterious to white Australia is that we have no place within it, no vantage point. We're shut out, often with that sullen stubbornness that Aboriginal Australia has used for more than 200 years as the final - sometimes the only - form of resistance….Ten Canoes is de Heer's attempt to get closer to traditional culture, and make a film that's a real collaboration, based on respect. I don't know what it took to achieve, but there's never been an Australian film quite like it. It's as if the people of Ramingining decided to give us all a gift, by letting us inside. We get a vantage point and the impact is extraordinary.”