Ten Canoes/Cloudstreet Study Notes

Belonging statements: * There are many types of belonging: to family, culture, nation, education, social groups, place. * Many people choose not to belong - ironically such rebellion can actually make a new group to belong to. * If we don 't belong, we may become powerless. * "The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally. They speak to all of us in this way." - Anthony Minghella "Belonging to oneself - the whole essence of life lies in that." - Ivan Turgenev
"The conflict between the need to belong to a group and the need to be seen as unique and individual is the dominant struggle of adolescence." - Jeanne Elium "Self-identity is one of the first principles in everybody 's life." - John Clare

We can be forced to belong.

Belonging: * A sense of connectedness. * It is essential for a person 's growth and development. * Personal, social and cultural identity become integrated. * The need to 'fit-in '. * Fluid and usually based on choices * Change over time. * The 'herding ' instinct. * 'Strength in numbers ' seems hot-wired to our psyches. * Physiological need to associate with and be well regarded by our peers. * Helps to build cohesive stability. * Personal codes for right and wrong can force someone to challenge the status quo and withdraw from belonging on moral grounds.
Ten Canoes - Rolf de Heer
Purpose:
* Youth of Ramaning had highest suicide rate in Australia - no sense of belonging. * To educate Western societies on Aboriginal culture * Entertainment
Context:
* Yolngu people → north-eastern Arnhem Land in NT * Combine storytelling traditions with western narrative cinema. * Yolngu storytelling can be described as an all-emcompassing event that creates a relationship between all things, including self, country and kinsman - audience relates.

Links: * Both anecdotal stories * Multiple layers that eventually unite to show characters belonging to one another. * Connection to nature - Fish seeking water to accelerate his long awaited death and Ridjimararil dying and his spirit returning to the waterhole, they both had 'borrowed ' their lives from nature → water is cleansing * Belonging the place - characters from Cloudstreet get a sense of identity from the 'breathing ' house that brings them together and the Indigenous people are linked together as one through belonging to their home, the land and the cultural traditions generated from it, to unearth their identity. * Bridges between characters and audience - storyteller 's inclusive language and similarities in traditions - both use humour, lessons and colloquialism to which we can relate to. * Both give voice to social minorities - CS 's disabled (Fish) and TC 's little brother (Dayindi/Yeeralperil) * Universal meanings - TC using western means to teach use of Aboriginal culture and CS using western means to evoke a wider community. * Spiritual connections to landscape. * Aboriginality - Ramaning 's lack of connection to their culture (high suicide rates) link to CS 's spirits of young victims and their lack of belonging to family and home. * Both have contexts where modernised society has thrown everything out of whack.