Trapped

SWEET COUNTRY is a disturbing movie.  Filmed and directed by indigenous director Warwick Thornton, it is a moving collaboration between some of Australia's finest actors and unknown local aboriginal newcomers.  It provides a snapshot of the tough conditions that faced returned WWI diggers as they struggled to open up central Australia to cattle raising.

Up front it focuses on the racial tensions between the settlers and the aborigines they dispossessed whilst making them work in slave labour conditions on the properties.  But there are other demons at work too.  Alcohol becomes the solace for the ex-soldiers battling the heat and loneliness and harsh realities of the desert country.  This fuels tensions.  Sam Kelly kills one such settler in self-defence of himself and his wife. He is hunted and brought to trial, but exonerated.  Not acceptable to the locals:  he is shot dead as he leaves town.

Interestingly the story-line is based on fact.  Google "Wilaberta Jack" and on the Trove website you'll find a report of a trial in Darwin in the 2 August 1929 edition of the Northern Standard of one Wilaberta Jack accused of murdering Harry Henty.  It makes fascinating reading as it recounts word for word the testimony of witnesses. The jury returns a verdict of justifiable homicide.

In many ways it is a depressing story.  It reminds us vividly of the injustices visited upon the first peoples of this land.  It also points to the disadvantages and lack of support suffered by those living in remote areas, even as they struggle to make a living for themselves and to contribute to our national economy.  For today it also highlights the lack of care for returned servicemen who suffer as a result of their time in war zones - then and now!  And it challenges us to pay greater attention to the scourge of alcohol and drug addiction in our communities.

On the face of it, Sweet Country portrays the unjust situations the faced aboriginal people.  They were trapped in a hopeless circumstance with little protection or prospect.  Despised as savages, exploited as slave labour, their women used as sex relief, they inhabit a sad chapter in our national story.  But the other players - the settlers, the townsfolk, the mounted police - are all equally trapped in the harsh reality of frontier life.  One wonders how they could have been other than they were.