High Ground | Dir: Stephen Maxwell Johnson| ★ ★ ★ ★ ½
This tense thriller brings to light some of Australia’s previously hidden and incredibly violent history. Set in the Northern Territory’s Yolngu Country or Arnhem Land in 1919, the Great War may be over but another war continues.
Former sniper Travis (Simon Baker) witnessed a botched police raid that resulted in the massacre of a whole tribe of Indigenous people – except for a young boy Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul) that Travis saved and took to a Christian mission and his uncle Baywara (Sean Mununggurr) who was seriously injured and rescued by his father (Witiyana Marika).
Witiyana Marika, who also produces the film as well as acting in it, is a Yolngu man who co-founded the band Yothu Yindi alongside the late Dr M Yunupingu Yindi, in the early 1990’s.
Twelve years later, Gutjuk joins a Baywara attacking animals and settlers in the remote area and Travis, who now works as a bounty hunter, is co-opted to find a solution. Director/ producer Johnson gives people a chance to rethink Australia’s history and the stories that have been used to build our nation upon. “It’s a story of fear, treachery, heroism, sacrifice, freedom and love, misguided beliefs, an unequal struggle for power, and grief.”
Johnson says that the heart of the film is a story of mythic proportions with complexity and no easy answers. It “is the tragic story of Frontier encounters and the missed opportunity between two cultures.
“High Ground was conceived as a story that would challenge accepted notions of Australia’s settlement. Faced with the myth of terra nullius the aim with the film is to present a different perspective on how this country was formed. It explores themes of identity and culture and the attempts that were made to preserve and progress culture in the face of an overwhelming threat.”
High Ground screens at Somerville from Monday 4 January to Sunday 10 January as part of the Perth Festival.
Lezly Herbert
Love OUTinPerth Campaign
Help support the publication of OUTinPerth by contributing to our
GoFundMe campaign.
