Rolf de Heer's film premiered as part of the Adelaide Festival with sound problems dogging the otherwise pristine print. The film looks great, and the narration with David Gulpilil is too important to miss, obviously, as I found it very difficult to keep up with the extremely complex set up/story. When hearing a new language such as this it is important to hear things clearly - sadly the capacity of the Adelaide Festival to screen the film was lacking on this front.
That said, the film is filled with compelling visuals not unlike one of the earlier films of de Heer, and it has some very quaint (albeit base) amusement wrapped into the story.
Set a 1000 years ago before white fellas came to Australia, this is a dual story, one told in the immediate black and white/sepia world of reality, and one told in the rich color of the Aboriginal dream time... both stories are pretty much the same, and the roles are played by the same actors in each, so there are points where it's easy to get a little confused by who is doing what and when - but over all this is what you'd call a worthy film - it has the look of an old documentary at times, and that's not a bad look.
I enjoyed it despite the technological problems of this screening.
That said, the film is filled with compelling visuals not unlike one of the earlier films of de Heer, and it has some very quaint (albeit base) amusement wrapped into the story.
Set a 1000 years ago before white fellas came to Australia, this is a dual story, one told in the immediate black and white/sepia world of reality, and one told in the rich color of the Aboriginal dream time... both stories are pretty much the same, and the roles are played by the same actors in each, so there are points where it's easy to get a little confused by who is doing what and when - but over all this is what you'd call a worthy film - it has the look of an old documentary at times, and that's not a bad look.
I enjoyed it despite the technological problems of this screening.