Good start, but then it gets ruined

From my favorite movies..

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

If you've ever wondered why Aboriginal people in Australia want an official apology from the head of government, see this film. They haven't gotten one yet. Maybe later--time moves slowly for the oppressed. Economically savvy, rich conservatives will not want to hear an official State apology rendered. Why? Because, they believe that the "sorry" campaign is a ploy to hit the Austalian Federal Government with a plethora of expensive lawsuits. Rank and file social conservatives, who make up about 10% of the population, just think that Aboriginals should be happy that they've gotten citizenship in "the Lucky Country" and keep their mouths shut.Each character in "The Tracker" is a metaphor for prevailing historically based and continuing attitudes between the indigenous people of Australia and European settlers. Not only that, but within the dialogues and actions in "The Tracker", one can see the still existing fundamental conflict between European legal traditions and those of peoples who settled Australia some 60,000 years ago. By the end of the film, one can discern the outlines of a lasting reconciliation in Australia based on mutual respect between human beings.If your'e not already familiar, "The Tracker" will show you what most of the Australian interior looks like. It's hot, red, dry and largely empty. Yet, if you slow down and focus your eyes, there is much more to the land than you might have thought. A good tracker could show you how large a human footprint on this natural setting of the Earth can be. A good tracker can also show you the wisdom inherent in patience and respect.David Gulpilil plays this tracker and he steals the movie. Rolf de Heer's writing and direction in this film is to be applauded. In fact, I have yet to see a bad film come out of Rolf de Heer's directing. His "Ten Canoes" should have won greater recognition in 2006. Gary Sweet as the racist fanatic was convincing. Overflowing with hypocritical Christian piety, Sweet made me feel sick to be identified as "white". You could almost hear him saying, "We had to kill the blacks in order to save them." Damon Gameau, as the follower, played his role with wooden innocence. Grant Page as the apolitical, amoral veteran was at his best after he took a spear. But, automatons are like that.

Okay, this movie has an interesting and gripping plot that can easily be done from start to finish in about half-an-hour. David Gulpilil is his usual, wonderful self, and carries this film. He plays a tracker, as part of a 1920's manhunt, led by a brutish territorial policeman, a rookie, and an older man. Gulpilil, although a free civilian, is treated more like a prisoner, eventually getting chained to the police commander, who doesn't trust any aboriginals.The commander orders a massacre of innocent aborigines, spews all sorts of racist comments on how Aborigines are murderous animals that cannot be trusted, and bullies all of his companions, even killing a wounded man just so the mission will not be slowed down. Eventually, the harsh Australian outback gets the best of them, and Gulpilil performs an act of frontier justice that is really satisfying when it comes.My only complaint about this movie is that it is padded out to 90 minutes by endless montages of the team walking through the outback. The scenes are accompanies by the same couple of songs about the suffering of Aborigines, which we hear over and over again, because there are a lot of slow, walking montages. The actual dialog and drama in this film, as I said previously, would only take half-an-hour if these montages were eliminated. This really makes the film slow and boring.However, the film is not unbearable, and actually has good drama, if you are patient. The character-study is well done, and the issues of racism and justice are explored very eloquently. The ending is very predictable, but still manages to have a surprise twist to it. The movie is worth seeing, but only if you have the patience. As I said, it's very padded with long montages that may bore many people.

In 2002, Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence attacked the Australian government's policy of forcibly removing mixed race Aborigines from their families, sending them to government camps to be sold as servants, converted to Christianity, and eventually assimilated into white society. Just released on DVD and set six years earlier in 1922, Australian Indie director Rolf de Heer's The Tracker is a parable that also explores racism in Australia but on an even darker level, reflecting, according to de Heer, the practices and attitudes of that era towards the Aboriginal people. As three white men and an Aboriginal tracker set out on horseback to search for a black fugitive (Noel Wilton) accused of killing a white woman, the search through the stunning landscape of the Flinders Ranges becomes an exercise in savagery that raises questions about genocide.The travelers in the search party are nameless and referred to only as The Fanatic (Gary Sweet), The Follower (Damon Gameau), and The Veteran (stuntman Grant Page). They are characters who are both individuals and archetypes who seem to represent racial discrimination and its passive acceptance. The Fanatic is the pompous police officer who is shown as repulsively intolerant of blacks and an individual that will not hesitate to kill. The Follower is his young and innocent assistant who is startled by The Fanatic's relentless racism yet too inexperienced to make a move. The Veteran is an old timer who will not challenge authority.In The Tracker, De Heer employs two effective and original touches. One is the use of ten original songs composed by Graham Tardif, with lyrics by de Heer, and performed by Archie Roach, an Aboriginal singer who sounds like Tom Waits. Like the Neil Young score in Jim Jarmusch's subversive Western, Dead Man, the continual music can be intrusive but it creates a mood of solemnity. In another device, de Heer cuts away from scenes of violence to show still shots of Peter Coad paintings done in a simple primitive style. The raw emotion of Roach's songs and Coad's expressive artwork establish a record of the horror and allow us to relate to the mythic quality of the drama.The Tracker plays the part of a fool saying to the officer "Yes, Boss. Okay Boss" yet, like Feste in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, he is a knowing fool, a man of humor and irony and an instinctive intelligence about the natural world, its spirits and its sacred places. When The Fanatic tells him to show The Follower the signs he is following, he points to one stone in a field of thousands saying, "Dis stone in the wrong place, belong over here", underneath almost dry, he gone couple of hours." revealing knowledge of the place of every stone. We know that The Tracker, though outwardly subservient, is the one who is really in charge and that the search party would be lost without him. As The Fanatic forces The Follower and The Veteran to participate in murder, the groundwork is laid for revenge and retribution.The Tracker is a beautiful and powerful film that bears witness to the time when there was no talk of Aboriginal reconciliation and no hope for it. Damon Gameau shows great promise as the young man who has developed that rare quality called conscience and we identify with his strength of character. The highlight performance of the film, however, is that of charismatic native actor David Gulpilul. He portrays a man of simple dignity, not a "noble savage" or a faithful "Jacky Jacky" figure necessary to white dominance of the frontier but simply a man who has a profound sense of the world around him. Through him de Heer allows us to glimpse the possibility of establishing a true multi-racial society where people respect each other as equals.

I watched this wonderful film last night on television after having, unfortunately, missed it during its house release several years ago. Even though it would have been far better to see the beautiful cinematography on the big screen I was still moved and highly impressed with this historically insightful look under the carpet of our history.It is an interesting coincidence that I watched The Proposition several days ago and was able to watch The Tracker last night-both films, although separated by roughly fifty years, still circle the same historical period in that they both deal with Australia's adolescence and it is this historical backdrop that binds these films together in my mind.If a film returns to my thoughts after I have watched it, regardless of the geographical setting or the chronological period, that film is successful by my standards and if you wakeup the next morning replaying scenes of the film then it certainly is a winner-that is exactly what happened this morning. De Heer's script and direction created a haunting movie. The subtlety of the nuances made for a deeply intellectual journey through the tracks of these different people embroiled in activities beyond their understanding. Is this the paradigm of human existence? De Heer is to be congratulated for writing a scrip dealing with historical topics generally bypassed by commercial film makers and then directing that film with such sensitivity and understanding. It is rare to see a film that paints such a critical view of the relationship of the Aboriginal people and the close-mindedness of the Anglo settlers during that first century of contact. The definitive film about this contact has yet to be made and I for one anxiously await its production. We know so little, even if we make a concerted effort to locate the sources, about this early period of racial interaction. In the history of the world has there been such a diametrically antagonistic confrontation between peoples? The accuracy of this contact drama seems to have been lost because of the very nature of the discontinuity between these peoples. De Heer attempted to redress this lack of information and due to the brilliance of his insights, as well as the brilliance of the cast, we the audience are the better for having watched their work.