Redalyc.POSTCOLONIAL LONGING on the AUSTRALIAN CINEMATIC
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies E-ISSN: 2175-8026 [email protected] Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Brasil Marsh, Pauline POSTCOLONIAL LONGING ON THE AUSTRALIAN CINEMATIC FRONTIER Ilha do Desterro: A Journal of English Language, Literatures in English and Cultural Studies, vol. 69, núm. 2, mayo-agosto, 2016, pp. 177-191 Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Florianópolis, Brasil Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=478355263004 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2016v69n2p177 POSTCOLONIAL LONGING ON THE AUSTRALIAN CINEMATIC FRONTIER Pauline Marsh* University of Tasmania Tasmania, AU Abstract he Tracker and Red Hill are cinematic re-interpretations of Australia’s colonial past, which they characterise by a sense of postcolonial longing and an expectation of intimacy. Both ilms are portals through which arguments about historical truth, subjective memory and contemporary realities are explored and tested. In this article I argue that both these two ilms create the idea that the historical colonial space was a constant interplay of violence and beauty, and of hatred and friendship. As black and white characters negotiate their way in and around these seemingly polemical positions, viewers are also challenged to do the same. Keywords: Australian Film; Reconciliation Cinema; Colonial Australia; Aboriginal Representation; Australian Frontier Drama In the frontier dramas he Tracker (2002, Dir. Rolf Although stylistically diverse, common to both De Heer) and Red Hill (2010, Dir. Patrick Hughes) the ilms is the use of narrative and stylistic tropes of Australian colony is ictively re-envisaged as a place the Western—horses, open landscapes, full moons of extreme violence, fuelled by bigotry and hatred. and dramatic sunsets are shot in widescreen, and Far from being celebrations of colonial expansion, the disillusioned white hero is caught between the these Westerns are instead predominantly stories civilised and uncivilised. he Tracker, written and of disgraceful massacres and murders. Nonetheless, directed by Rolf De Heer and released in 2002, is set punctuating the destruction and lawlessness are fairly late on the chronological timeline of the period moments of sensitivity and beauty, and depictions of colonisation, 1922. However it takes place “[…] of gentle and understanding relationships between somewhere in Australia,” in an outback area where settlers and indigenous characters. Consequently he British settlement is barely evident, which strongly Tracker and Red Hill frontiers are nuanced spaces where evokes the “unexplored” and lawless frontier of an meaningful, complex interactions between settlers and earlier time. It is the story of a group of three policemen indigenes play out amid violence and racism. hese and an Aboriginal tracker on the hunt for a fugitive contemporary re-visionings of Australia’s frontier past at bay. On horseback, the men fruitlessly pursue an indulge in a particular type of relection that I term Aboriginal man who has been accused of murdering a a postcolonial longing. he nostalgia in these ilms is white woman. he Tracker (David Gulpilil) physically not for triumphant colonial conquest and obliteration leads the men in the search for he Fugitive (Noel of Aborigines, but for friendships and understandings Wilton) who remains, to the policemen’s frustration, between non-indigenous and indigenous peoples. always a step ahead. hroughout the hunt the police * Dr Pauline Marsh is a researcher and teacher with the Centre for Rural Health. She has published in international journals in the areas of Aboriginal Studies, Film heory and Palliative Care and is the director of her own short revisionist history ilm, he Conquest of Emmie (2016). Pauline has an established participant observation research relationship with a rural community garden in southern Tasmania and teaches into postgraduate primary health care units. Her email address is [email protected] Esta obra tem licença Creative Commons 178 Pauline Marsh, Postcolonial Longing on the Australian Cinematic Frontier taunt he Tracker and inlict gratuitous violence on Australia’s. Not classic Westerns, he Tracker and Red the Aborigines they encounter during the search. he Hill are more appropriately described as “modern” or Tracker ultimately emerges from a guise of submission “revisionist,” subcategories that refer to the socially to avenge this white cruelty, and at the end of the ilm critical Westerns that emerged in the 1950s and 1970s hangs the policeman in charge, he Fanatic (Gary (Hayward 502). 1 he revisionist Western is identiiable Sweet). he complex nature of settler/indigenous by its ability to redirect spectator sympathies “onto the relations is captured in he Tracker’s relationship displaced ‘natives’” (MacFarlane, “Back Tracking” 62), with both he Fanatic and the new young recruit, he and as such these ilms are also arguably postcolonial, Follower (Damon Gameau). he three men oscillate as they explore the history of the settler-nation from between respect, afection and overt hatred for each points of view other than those of the colonisers. other. his interspersing of brutality with moments of he Tracker and Red Hill also critique the politics, gentle respect brings an unsettling intricacy to these ideologies, power and race relations of colonisation and frontier relations that bespeaks a longing for a truth of of its atermath. By juxtaposing camaraderie against frontier history that can accommodate violence as well division, and beauty against horror, these works of as camaraderie. iction present contradictory frontier realities. hese Red Hill (2010) is set not on the frontier, but in a cinematic imaginings invite viewers to re-consider highly stylised modern Australia. Nonetheless, it evokes their own understandings of contact history, and the cinematic Western frontier at every opportunity: of its relationship with contemporary ideas about empty, wide streets; generic shop signs; men on horses; reconciliation. classic Western music; a wide and wild landscape; and a As works of historical iction, these ilms add their lawless town. Directed by Patrick Hughes, this ilm is a particular stories to discussions about how history postmodern pastiche of modern characters and frontier is and should be told, and stimulate debates of their mythologies. Constable Shane Cooper (Ryan Kwanten) own making about the relationships between truth, has relocated to the small town of Red Hill that is, on history and iction. hese are debates which permeate his irst day on the job, under siege from a disturbed and discourses of reconciliation. As Tom O’Regan states, angry prison escapee Jimmy Conway (Tom E. Lewis). a re-visionist history ilm challenges contemporary Conway is an Aboriginal man, once the inest brumby viewers to consider the state of contemporary cross- trackers in the area, who has been wrongly imprisoned. cultural relations: “It problematises the ‘pioneer He is seeking revenge for past injustices inlicted on legend’, it disturbs the comfortable legitimacy of him by the police sergeant Old Bill (Steve Bisley) settler institutions and lifeways, and it necessitates and the local men. Old Bill and his team of vigilantes reconciliation as a public project” (276). In this article close down the town in an attempt to kill Conway, but a close reading of the narrative and stylistic elements of Conway systematically kills almost all of them, before each of these ilms examines how a postcolonial longing being inally gunned down himself. Cooper makes a for a complex past, which permeates these cinematic stand for Conway, and in doing so discovers the hidden retellings of history, might engage with a reconciliatory truth about his past mistreatment by the police. In this future. he aesthetics of the two ilms—the music, ilm truth and iction are interwoven to great extent. poetry and cinematography—juxtaposing confronting he story is, however, predominantly a classic morality violence, not only bespeak the desire for cross-cultural tale of good versus evil, in which the corrupt are justly camaraderie, but also bring to attention connections punished by the enlightened new generation of pro- between the past and the spectator’s present. he reconciliation white police oicers. present-day yearning for evidence of nuanced frontier he Western has a long cinematic history that intersubjectivities engages with many of the extratextual commenced in Hollywood but has been adopted and debates about the place of ictional imaginings of the reinterpreted by other national cinemas, including past in contemporary understandings of reconciliation. Ilha do Desterro v. 69, nº2, p. 177-191, Florianópolis, mai/ago 2016 179 In particular, these ilms contest the notion of a single face shows him smiling the music stops and is replaced and certain truth about the Australian frontier. Rather, by gunshots and screams. Ater the shootings they hang they insist on multiple, discursively constructed and the people in the trees, as a warning to others, and ride nuanced truths to explain the period. away (igure 1). Slanting Truth in he Tracker On one level he Tracker imagines the frontier as a place of unchecked