We see Tracker gradually discard his European garb as he begins to see little distinction between himself and the Aborigines he is pursuing. Symbols such as these that were used to convey the distinction or the different classifications of Aboriginal peoples in use during this period (the film is set in 1922). The Tracker (David Gulpilil) at the beginning of the flim is fully clad in European clothes, distinguishing him from the ‘bush blacks’. The Tracker, a film directed by Rolf de Heer about an Aboriginal tracker employed by colonists to pursue an Aboriginal fugitive, touches on historic events that may or may not have happened.
World premiere: March 2 2002, Her Majesty’s Adelaide
De Heer and Gulpilil continued their collaboration four years later with another provocative and visually stunning film about Aboriginal life, Ten Canoes (2006).
The film was shot with a small crew, in sequence, on location in the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia, and the paintings were done on location. The tracker has to spear him in the leg, a punishment that again is replaced with a painting. They already have the black fugitive in custody, for the rape of a woman of their clan. White law is then superseded, as the local tribesmen take the tracker and the young policeman prisoner. When Gulpilil’s character does eventually exact revenge, he gives the policeman a mock-trial in British court-style, and a British form of execution – hanging. The film isn’t just about white violence or white justice, though. The story is fictional but we know that these things happened, and de Heer’s strategy is to make us feel them in a different way. Director Rolf de Heer is turning these despicable, unspeakable acts into a kind of cinematic cave painting. The paintings could be from any time, representing a collective memory. Instead, each killing becomes a kind of instant history. These paintings disrupt the place that violent scenes usually occupy in violent cinema – there is no payoff for the viewer who wants the thrill of gore. The movie is incredibly direct and confronting in showing cruelty and humiliation, but it substitutes a series of paintings, created for the film by South Australian artist Peter Coad, for most of the explicit depictions of ultimate violence. The Tracker is partly about the violent stain in Australian race relations, but it’s also about depictions of violence on the screen.
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