Mad Bastards film review

Directed by Brendan Fletcher, Mad Bastards draws inspiration from true life testimonies of Indigenous people of the Kimberly region in northern Western Australia. TJ (Dean Daley-Jones) is an Aboriginal man who admits he carries 'a man with an axe' inside him. He's unexpectedly graphically violent, needing only a minor trigger to set off an explosive reaction that is unleashed on those around him. With obvious disregard to authority,  a brother in prison, and a mother who wants nothing to do with him, his anger builds. Perth city life holds nothing for him, almost spontaneously deciding to hitch-hike his way the tiny town of Five Rivers in the Kimberly. In search for his now 13-year-old estranged son Bullet (Lucas Yeeda), he encounters many fellow mad bastards along the way.

Bullet isn't without his own problems though. Having no positive role models in his life, including a mother that drinks constantly, he wanders the streets in gangs at night causing havoc. Ultimately landing himself in jail, Texas (Greg Tait) the local police officer, has sympathy for him and sends him on a trek through the outback with an Aboriginal elder to help straighten him out.

 

When TJ arrives in Five Rivers he is warned by equally mad Texas that he won't stand for trouble. After a rocky start TJ meets up with Bullet, though both are at a loss of how to begin a father/son relationship. This not helped any by his ex-partner Nella (Ngaire Pigram). It seems to Bullet he can't escape the violence that surrounds him and his town. Inevitably Texas steps in to run TJ out of town in yet another bloody battle.

The highlights of this film are the distinctively beautiful landscapes dueted by the music of the Pigram Brothers and multi-ARIA Award winner Alex Lloyd. Lucas Yeeda has alluring screen presence, of which I'm certain we will see more of in the future.

 

Mad Bastards in currently showing nationally.

 

Oranges & Sushine film review

Oranges and Sunshine is based on the true story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham UK, and is a film that is long overdue. Margaret (Emily Watson) initially dismissing a young Australian woman's search for her estranged British family after being deported at 4 years old, chances upon a similar account from one of her weekly group counseling sessions. Intrigued and disturbed by these stories she begins an exhaustive quest to uncover the dual British and Australian governments of the day organised deportation of children from the UK to Australia from the 1940s til 1970s. 

 

An estimated 130,000 children of varying ages were told they be going to a land of endless sunshine, where you could pick oranges for breakfast on the way to school... their parents, however, were told the children would be placed in "nice" homes. What resulted was three generations of displaced people with only sketchy identities that were subjected to inhumane conditions at the hands of new authorities.

Directed by Jim Loach (King's Speech), the story mainly follows the case studies of two male Australians played by Hugo Weaving and David Wenham as Margaret tirelessly searches to reunite families, and ultimately brings worldwide attention to this extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, after intense lobbying, finally acknowledged the British Stolen Generation along with the Stolen Indigenous Generation in his first term of office in 2007. Both policies occurred simultaneously in the same decades.  It's ironic to note the government's aim was to populate Australia, while presently the government is trying to keep immigrants out.

While such an important film in historical context, it only skims the surface of these people's trauma and the ludicrous secret polices of those in power.