The Tracker
“The Australian context is brought to life by composers who can evoke a sense of place and situation”
The Tracker simultaneously puts forth distinct allegations and pleas in the navigation of the divide between cultures. The unashamed portrayal of the complete character spectrum creates vivid detailing of Australia’s shameful past. The journey descended into an acrimonious and murderous trek that shifts power from one man to another. A power of play.
The Tracker, an allegorical film directed by Rolf de Heer, that offers an allegory of race relations and human accountability. It is set in rough bush country in 1922, a fatal, unforgiving environment in which a journey into Australia’s black heartland that remains disconcerting and disorientating. . The violent stain in Australian race relations is depicted through intersexuality in a series of paintings created by South Australian artist, Peter Coad, for the most explicit depictions of ultimate ferocity and cruelty, helping to displace and contextualise the violence. This adds an uncanny power to the film. Rolf de Heer turns traumatic scenes into an instant history, a memory that is despicable, unspeakable, and haunting. In the opening scenes, long tracking shots of a black tracker (David Gulpilli) bound in chains by a white trooper, known as ‘The Fanatic’, (Gary Sweet) on horseback. These shots depict the insignificance that ‘The Fanatic’ has within the Australian bushland environment, in comparison to ‘The Tracker’. While its cinematography reveals beautiful landscapes, harsh environments, and invokes a feeling of the time, 1922, it also stagnates under the weight of its formal style. It becomes evident through Archie Roach’s lyrics that he preserves an oral tradition, in which this is the site for an exploration into Australia’s wasteland past of intolerance and racial injustice. Rolf de Heer’s allegorical film acts as a parable, through the vivid and harshness of the Australian outback, violent past in
The Tracker simultaneously puts forth distinct allegations and pleas in the navigation of the divide between cultures. The unashamed portrayal of the complete character spectrum creates vivid detailing of Australia’s shameful past. The journey descended into an acrimonious and murderous trek that shifts power from one man to another. A power of play.
The Tracker, an allegorical film directed by Rolf de Heer, that offers an allegory of race relations and human accountability. It is set in rough bush country in 1922, a fatal, unforgiving environment in which a journey into Australia’s black heartland that remains disconcerting and disorientating. . The violent stain in Australian race relations is depicted through intersexuality in a series of paintings created by South Australian artist, Peter Coad, for the most explicit depictions of ultimate ferocity and cruelty, helping to displace and contextualise the violence. This adds an uncanny power to the film. Rolf de Heer turns traumatic scenes into an instant history, a memory that is despicable, unspeakable, and haunting. In the opening scenes, long tracking shots of a black tracker (David Gulpilli) bound in chains by a white trooper, known as ‘The Fanatic’, (Gary Sweet) on horseback. These shots depict the insignificance that ‘The Fanatic’ has within the Australian bushland environment, in comparison to ‘The Tracker’. While its cinematography reveals beautiful landscapes, harsh environments, and invokes a feeling of the time, 1922, it also stagnates under the weight of its formal style. It becomes evident through Archie Roach’s lyrics that he preserves an oral tradition, in which this is the site for an exploration into Australia’s wasteland past of intolerance and racial injustice. Rolf de Heer’s allegorical film acts as a parable, through the vivid and harshness of the Australian outback, violent past in