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Representations of indigenous people in film
Walkabout movie analysis
Movie adaptation theories
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Recommended: Representations of indigenous people in film
Walkabout (Film 1971)
By no fault of their own, the two children are stranded in the Australian outback. Without enough food or water, they have to find their way back without any help.
When they run into the aboriginal boy, the children were almost at the "end of the line". In order to survive, they are forced to work and live by the lifestyle of the aboriginal boy, who is (to quote the quote) "a spectrum opposite, who they are forced to coexist with)
2)
The landscape portrayed in the movie is the Australian outback. The outback is nothing other than a desert. Yet this setting acts as two different areas, depending on which perspective you look from (either the children or the aboriginal boy). For the two children, this desert is an uninhabitable environment. They are not used to this type of place and have a hard time adapting. But the aboriginal boy is at home in the desert. He knows where to find everything he needs to survive. So in this sense, the landscape plays a very important role to tell the story as it is.
3)
The Invasion of outsiders to a new harsh land can only refer to one thing, which is the two children being involuntarily introduced to the Australian outback, an environment they are not used to (so to them it is a "harsh new land"). Their inability to survive is shown by how exhausted they were when they reached the oasis. At some point they used up all the available water. So in a way they were extremely lucky to have met the aboriginal boy.
An example for their refusal to accept the aboriginal culture would the fact that the girl refuses to take off her clothes in front of the aboriginal boy, while her brother is very open to accepting this way of life.
4)
For me the very last scene of the movie is the most memorable. Not because of the fact that their all swimming in the pond naked, but because the girl actually misses this way of life. This is the very same way of life that she kept refusing at first. And she is thinking how, if she would have "mated" with the aboriginal boy, she might have a much happier life than she does at the actual end of the movie.The fact that her lifestyle in which she thinks she would be happier has changed really stands our for me.
In Australia the Aboriginals face discrimination daily. The film opened with four young Aboriginal girls singing on a makeshift stage facing their community. When the camera panned to show the smiling faces in the crowd it gave a feel of unity and love. Later it showed two sisters who were trying to hitch a ride into the city from the main road. Yet every vehicle passed them by; once they saw who they were, frustrated the older sister. Gale stated it was because they ‘were black’. When in the town playing their song on the stage in a bar, the youngest sister turned up and took
April was a fair-skinned Metis. She never felt that she fit in to either culture. “How was I going to pass for a white person when I had a Metis sister?” (p. 49). She believed that her Metis heritage led to nothing but bad choices and it would only damage her future. She believed that the white society was classy, rich and they were treated with more respect. The family she was born into was one of alcohol abuse, parties and neglect. She hated everything about her Metis background. Her sister Cheryl on the other hand, was happy to be who she was and proud to express herself as a Metis person. Cheryl would defend the Metis traditions under any circumstance. She tried convincing April of the importance of their culture, ancestry and history. Cheryl sent April many letters, assignments and essays written by Metis people in hopes of changing April’s thoughts
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One Night the Moon (2001), is based on the events that took place in the harsh Australian outback in the early 1930s. The film evolves when a young girl, Emily, goes missing into the mountainous terrain of the Australian outback one night to follow the moon. Her family, European settlers, though desperate to find her, fail to employ the skills of a local Indigenous tracker, Albert Riley, due to their own racism. Perkins uses many literary elements such as camera angles, music, dialogue and editing to shape meaning and to influence her audience. One Night the Moon, introduces song into the Australian landscape, Indigenous people have always used song to talk about the land, and song itself has always been one of the central means of land management. One Night the Moon has been described as “A beautiful, seemless film with the ability to transport the audience.” Perkins endorses the idea that White settlers have failed to learn anything from the original inhabitants of this land and to support this statement, she layers the literary elements to highlight the racism, connection with the land and also contrasts the two male protagonists in the film.
The suburban house, as the film’s setting and sphere of action, is extraordinary partly because it is ‘next-door’ to an airport. The odd layout of this backyard is underlined because their suburb meets the kind of architectural cast-offs often found at the margins of big cities. This mix of the humble backyard with the international vectors of travel, tourism and international trade plays out in the film’s narrative which connects the domestic and the distant. The Castle displays many locations and landscapes easily identified as being unique of Australia- The ‘Aussy’ barbeque and patio setup, greyhound racetrack and poolroom, just to name a few. The neighbours of the Kerrigan’s are a symbol representing the multicultural diversi...
Though the stereotyping and alienation is strong in Dougy and Gracey’s community they manage to break away from it. The whites feel that the Aborigines get everything free from the government and never do any work of their own, and according to the book, most of them do just this.
The fact that this film is based on a true story makes it more powerful and real. The film puts a human face to the stolen generation, and the young actress who plays the main character Molly does not disillusion the viewer of the real emotions and disgusting actions taken upon the young half caste children taken from their families. She makes the journey real and her cleverness is created by the need to survive, not as an entertainment construction to make the film more exciting, but to give the viewer an emotional impact. The racial activist, A.O. Neville constantly shows strong discrimination against both Aboriginal culture and half-caste children. He is determined to `breed the black out of them'. "Are we to allow the creation of a third unwanted race?" resembling the cause of World War Two where Adoff Hitler proposed the creation of the `perfect race' therefore killing off over half the Jewish people.
In "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains," it is pretty obvious that the landscape is going to play an important part in the story - we are given the setting right in the title. However, a majority of the story actually takes place in an "Orientalized" locale that has been transposed into the Ragged Mountains. This alone is a great juxtaposition: the title describes what seems to be a run-down, unappealing landscape, while the real action takes place in fantastical setting. But why is the landscape so important if the psychological aspect is what Poe is trying to focus on? Most likely it is because the landscape gives us clues about what is actually happening in the minds of the characters, and hints at things that make the story clearer. For example, Bedloe starts his tale by describing "the thic...
Reynolds, H. (1976). The Other Side of The Frontier: Aboriginal resistance to the European invasion of Australia. Queensland, Australia: James Cook University
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To be human is to confront challenges and difficulties on life’s journey. Individuals may react to such changes in their lives with determination and courage. Determination can be a powerful and driving force; it can lead people to strive to where they want to be and what they want to do. Courage is the quality of mind and spirit that enables a person to endure difficulty, danger and pain. Courage allows a person to show great bravery. The Stolen Generation was a horrific period in history when the Australian Government were forcing the removal of Aboriginal and half caste children from their families and homes to live in white Christian settlements across Australia. The forced removal was official government policy from 1905 to 1971. Rabbit Proof Fence by Phillip Noyce allows the viewer to witness such challenges as they follow Molly on her long journey home to Jigalong in 1931 after she and her sister Daisy and her cousin Gracie are ‘stolen’ and put into a white English settlement, named Moore River, to ‘protect them from themselves’.
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