TEN CANOES

Hello All! (I am trying to appear more cheerful than I feel. right now I just feel cold, that kind of cold that gets into your bones...but I have a roof over my head many many warm clothes and a heater so I no complain...but this heater is a piece'o's*#t its sitting bout three inches away from me and the fruitcaker still can't keep me or my room even remotely safe from the chill. - please note I would swear firecely like some sort of man from the sea but some of the esteemed movie club members have proper jobs and the proper jobs have these filters that are very conservative and don't like swear words).

OK! So last's weeks film was Ten Canoes and I went into the cinema with quite alot of unnecessary cynicism because I don't want to be one of the cultural elite who like films about black people simply because they have black people in it. Thats a bit patronising and tokenistic I think. First and foremost is it a good film? Then we can start asking questions about the importance and significance of the film.

But Ten Canoes is a sophisticated film that works on many levels and espouses the essense of storytelling.

One of the lines that you would have heard in preview or read in the newspapers is repeated a number of times in the film; "This is not your story, it's my story". This is a really poingant line not as a 'I'm aboriginal and your not' kinda way but in a device which allows the audience to accept how the story is being told and addresses any discomfort or awkwardness when watching this very foreign film. And we are constantly reminded that we are a white audience watching an aboriginal story, not in a patronising or mean way. Just a gentle reminder, that its ok that this story chops between three time zones two of which are ancestral, that the pace is different to most western classical narrative structures and that stories are connected to the people who are connected to the land which is connected to the stroies that are connect to the people...dig it?

I would really love to ramble on about this film cause there is lots of things to say about it. We can look at it from a post modern perspective (oh come on! You can look at it as a post modern film even though the story is from a very long time ago. I am a cinema studies graduate and the only use I have for what I learnt so far are these movie club reviews so back off cynical bastidos!), or look at its simularities with French new wave (see above!), or talk about David Guilpil and his son's performances or how the photography seemed to rewrite the Australian landscape in Australian cinmea, or the reasons why the filmmaker replicated historical photos within the film but I don't really have time today.

It is story within a story within a story. And the actual story was not incredibly interesting and I didn't like the use of black and white for the second tier of the story but I understand why they did it I guess. I did like the listening to the language, watching the faces and the landscape and the final death dance is really beautiful and facinating to watch.

It must be noted that Tim inappropiately fell alseep during the film! The pace is very slow! But these are black people we are watching Tim!

A very warm welcome must be formerly and offically extended to Damien my equally useless cinema studies compadre!