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  Film: Yolngu Boy March 18, 2001 Reporter : Peter Thompson Peter's Verdict - a tremendously dramatic story Director - Stephen Johnson Main Cast - Sean Mununggur, Nathan Daniels and John Sebastian Pilakui Genre - Horror Showing at - Selected cinemas nationally. Video: broadband  Indigenous issues are prominent in the media although they often generate more heat than light. But a new feature film promises to take us inside traditional Aboriginal culture in a way that hasn't been done before.We need to constantly remind ourselves that there's a strong vein of goodwill in the white community towards Aboriginal people. A lot of us — it's probably safe to say most of us — want the best for them. But — and it's a huge but — nearly all of us are fearfully ignorant about what that actually means, fearfully ignorant about what it's like to be Aboriginal. Given the extent of that ignorance, it's not surprising that the road to reconciliation is so rocky. This new film, Yolngu Boy, won't change that overnight but it's a big step in the right direction. Without preaching, without fudging the issues, without resorting to cheap tricks or sentimentality, it takes us on a wild ride with three boys for whom this country is home, but English is a foreign language.  The story revolves around Lorrpu and Milika growing up in Yolngu country in north-east Arnhem Land. They wear baseball caps and play Aussie Rules but they're being brought up within their own traditional culture as well. They've been initiated and they will soon undergo the ceremony that will make them men in the eyes of their people. They have a friend, Botj, a formidable personality and a born leader but at war with himself and his community. He returns after three months spent in the white man's gaol and he's taken under the stern control of his Uncle Matjala. Even in the best-regulated societies, boys get up to mischief. Unable to deal with his increasing isolation and falling behind his childhood friends Lorrpu and Milika, Botj tempts them into petty crime. And this is where Yolgnu Boy shows its hand. It isn't some rosy, tourist's eye view of Aboriginal life. It confronts us with the full force of adolescent rage. When his friends run away, Botj turns to the most self-destructive behaviour of all, the addiction that's decimating his generation — petrol sniffing.  Producer Patricia Edgar, the Director of the Australian Children's Television Foundation which initiated the project, says the film strives for reality."We certainly didn't want to go in there and make some idealised froth-and-bubble, some nice romanticised view that some people might want to hear. But the really powerful thing is that it is together with the Aboriginal people. They wanted to tell that story. "Stephen (Johnson) [the film's director] had done the Yothu Yindi clips but the most important thing was that he had this wonderful relationship with the community. He had grown up with these people and they'd seen him work with the camera."  Yolngu Boy took six years to realise and Stephen Johnson spent most of that time on the ground with writer Chris Anastassiades, shaping the story to fit the reality of contemporary Yolngu life. "In the Yolngu world, human, animal, earth, fire, water — they're not separate things, they're one thing. They're part of one life force, of one energy. That is their culture, that is what they believe in, that is what Yolngu people are a part of. And our story is about three boys who are from that world, who are a part of that world," says Johnson. Botj becomes a fugitive but instead of abandoning him, Lorrpu and Milika decide to trek 500 kilometres overland to Darwin, eluding the authorities, to search for Botj's father. This is the main body of the film and it yields ravishing images and high drama as the boys come to terms with each other and the challenge of surviving on their own. But there are also moments of high exhilaration. "It's a coming-of-age story which I think is relevant to 15 year olds anywhere around the world. And many of the issues that they are addressing — the friendship, the bonds, the growing up, the stepping outside the law, the disapproval of the elders and how they're going to find themselves and what sort of people they're going to be — these are universal issues for all 15 year olds," says Patricia Edgar. It needn't concern us as an audience that the film was an enormously difficult logistical and diplomatic exercise. But it would be less than generous not to acknowledge the achievement of Patricia Edgar and her team, led by director Stephen Johnson. And to salute the three 15 year olds, Sean Mununggur, Nathan Daniels and John Sebastian Pilakui, who bring us face-to-face with their fascinating, exotic world. I should warn you to avoid Yolngu Boy if extreme camera movement makes you seasick but it probably won't bother a younger audience who have the most to gain from the film. That aside, I devoutly wish I could compel every single Australian to see it. Of course, things don't work like that and Yolngu Boy has to take its chances in a competitive, commercial world. In its favour is a tremendously dramatic story, very entertainingly told. It's probably the most important Australian film of the year. |
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