Counting Down The Fourteen Best Films Of 2014
In this totally subjective game of lists, there can only be one winner.
#11: Charlie’s Country, dir. Rolf de Heer
David Gulpilil is at his peak in a semi-autobiographical character study developed in collaboration with director Rolf de Heer. Charlie is caught between black and white communities, striving to reconcile both cultures’ demands on him and find something true to himself. Charlie’s Country is quietly damning about the predicament of indigenous Australia, without being as didactic as SBS’s First Contact.
Shot in vignettes, with a stillness and attentiveness to nature that reminded me of 12 Years A Slave, the film invites us to notice Charlie’s smallest expressions and gestures. He’s proud, independent, funny and wily; eternally hopeful, yet also weighed down by a deep sadness; and yearning to recapture some evanescent grace – epitomised by the photo he owns of himself as a teenager, dancing for the Queen at the Sydney Opera House.