Conflict In Jindabyne

The film Jindabyne, is a story about death, marriage, and race in an Australian town in New South Wales called Jindabyne. In the film, four men go fishing, and one of them discovers the dead body of a young indigenous girl. Instead of reporting what they found to the police immiditely they decide to stay and continue fishing. They decide that there is nothing they could do for her, so they tie her legs to a wood and continue with their fishing, reporting the death only when they return home. After they are done with their weekend of fishing and report the incident, the conflict started as the men are slander for not respecting the dead. The movie shows Australia to be fragmented and divided over white-indigenous relations. Using Auguste Isabelle

Rethinking the Nation: Apology, Treaty and Reconciliation in Australia, Ian Buchanan February 13, 2008, or The Baleful Enchantments of an Apology and other sources to show how the movie portray Australia to be divided over white-indigenous relations.
The woman body was found by one of the men called Stewart. When Stewart discovers the woman's body, he screams and called his friends see what he found. Billy the kid was going to call the police but Carl stopped him and said there is nothing they could do to help her. So the following morning, they woke up and start fishing as if nothing has happened. When they where do fishing, they report the situation to the police the town break loose and the chaos begins. Police officer said “we don’t step over bodies to enjoy our leisure activities. Pack of bloody idiots. I’m ashamed of you. The whole town’s ashamed of you” The policeman speaks for the town and knows problem like this is going to the relationship between the white Australia and the ingenuous people by bring chaos to the town, the men could have do what is morally right, to bring unity between white-ingenuous relations instead of creating this conflict. From the film we see some of the Aboriginal people attacking the men house and place of work. This is going to make the police job harder to protect them from the ingenuous people because some of thinks this is an act of racism and they want justice. They see this because of what they have been through and what happened to their past generation. In Butler’s terms, “When the four fishermen discover the body, we expect them to call the police immediately” (52). We all expect the men to call the police but they did not because they believe that there is nothing they could do help to her. The men know the relationship between the white and the ingenuous is fragile, they could have call the police and change go to a different location for their fishing weekend.
In addition the film does not blame the action of the men to decide to stay over the weekend and fish but rather question moral and principle.

The men just arrived after a long trip from home and found a dead woman and there is nothing that can be done for her. Also one of the men Carl, the oldest of the men, is injured give them another reason why they should all stay. Their decision and reason to stay satisfied the people in the town like the police, Stewart wife Claire and specifically the Aborigines. The Aborigine people accuse Stewart and his friends for racism because of their action to the dead woman and they have superiority over them the indigenous Australia people. This shows the audience to remember the country Australian past and the country is divided over white-indigenous

relations.
Problem like this should be bring the town together to find the girl killer instead of us trying to justify the men actions and not focusing on the killer or whose is going to be his next victim. Thereby strengthened the relationship between the white Australia and Aboriginal people but rather it show to be fragmented. In Cecconi terms “rather than the people concentrate on the quest of the girls murderer, Jindabyne revolves around details of the trouble dynamics which regulate the relationship between men and women, and even more so, between whites and Aborigines” (153) This shows that in the film the people should come as one find the killer of the dead girl instead of justifying what is right or wrong as Butler’s said “when the four fishermen decide not to act we automatically judge them to be morally and ethically culpable. But on what grounds do we make this judgment? Why does it matter so much that they fail to contact the police? To put it another way, what is the nature of the obligation on them to act that they fail to fulfill? The answer to this question is not immediately obvious, but our sense of indignation at the men’s inaction” (48) From Butler’s argument we see that because of society view we tend to be judgmental on the men action. Just the men failed to do their societal duty, everyone put blame on them and fined excuses why the murderer is still out there. Showing us the audience how Australia id fragmented and divided over white-indigenous relations.
Stewart wife Claire played a big role in the film specifically she tries to fix problem and make peace between the white Australia people and indigenous people. When Claire discovers about the incident she is disappointed by her husband’s action. In the scene Claire ask Stewart when he was eating in the house, what if it is their son Tom, he it is their son in the water, he said it was a stranger. From the tone of his voice show no sympathy to the dead woman. Claire says to her husband “she was dead”, “But don’t you see? She needed your help.” This shows that Claire wants her husband to see what he did was wrong and he should have done what is right by calling the police. She tries to persuade Stewart and the other men to accept their responsibilities as human beings towards the Aborigines. To show this she personally went to visit the dead girl in the mortuary. According to Cecconi, Claire is the only one who realizes something fundamental is not being addressed. She saw fragmentation and division over white-indigenous relations, she took seriously but her husband and friends didn’t care. This is why, in her determination to put things right, she sets herself up not only against her own family and friends, but also against those of the girl.
According to Butler’s, Claire is ashamed of her husband and his friends, and she tries to atone for that shame by first trying to make contact with the dead young woman’s family and then, more concretely, by raising money to pay for the funeral. Her fund-raising efforts are viewed with suspicion by the townsfolk, who would generally prefer that she let matters lie. Her husband, whose decision it was to continue fishing, is seemingly incapable of understanding that what the men did was wrong and is baffled and incensed by her actions. Claire tries to amend the problem that was done by her husband and his friends. Doing the fund-raising was a wonderful ideal but it was all rejected by the Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal people reject her money because she is white and they don’t trust her. Is not what she did but how she did it, in situation like there is always a middle person or organization? That person or organization that Aboriginal people trust and listen to them. She could have search for such person or people to guide and help in what she is trying to do. Through this way she could have achieve her goal successfully however she did her best to reconcile with indigenous people.
Reconciliation is not only an issue for the indigenous people of Australia, but for every Australian.

But the reconciliation is not enough to make things right but a treaty should be done in other to amend the fragmentation and division over white-indigenous relations. In Auguste’s article In February 2008, Australian government apologized to the Stolen Generations, the Indigenous children who were forcibly removed from their families on racial grounds. This speech was done by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, he said “the responsibility of the government, of the parliament of the nation in what he described ‘the darkest chapter’ of the history of the country” (Rudd, 2008). “He recognized the difficulty of forgiveness, but called for reconciliation” (425). The apology is one of the major steps taken by the Australian government to amend the division in the nation over white-indigenous relations. The Australian government coming to admit to what they did to the lost generation was good but is not enough because the Indigenous deserve better. This is why a treaty needs to be done between the Australian government and its indigenous communities. The treaty would really help to amend the division in the nation over white-indigenous relations in the long run. According to Auguste’s, “more than 200 years after the colonization of Australia and 37 years after the Larrakia’s petition, the treaty moved from being a legal instrument to becoming a sort of moral nation-building tool that would

unify Australia” (434). This shows that after the treaty helped to unify the nation and it is way to make thing right. She continue by saying to support this form of settlement, a treaty is a way to make thing right for the injustices of the past and serves as a basis for a new relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, quite like the apology. This will go far as the treaty tackles the roots of the flawed relationship between the two groups and provides a framework that would recognize and protect the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians as the Indigenous component of Australia. This is what the Australia government has to do to unify the nation and stop the division over white-indigenous relations.

In the last scenes of the film, Claire goes to the memorial service to pay her last respects, the young man comes her and send her away “you don’t belong here” and one of women said to him “leave her alone” and later on she is joined by her husband and his friends. During the funeral, Stewart goes to the father and apologizes on behalf of the men and their families but the girl’s father rejected is apology. The finally saw what they did is wrong but it was hard for them to understand what they did was wrong in the beginning because they had different view. This was because the fact that the men themselves were not responsible for the woman’s death but, they neglected her dead body when they discovered it, but ultimately that is unimportant in the face of the larger crime, namely, her murder, and they had no part in that.