Review: High Ground
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This film is difficult to write about and, at times, difficult to watch. But it is a story steeped in our history, a history we cannot put behind us until we acknowledge it.
This is not a true story, but it could be.
This is not a perfect movie either—a bit too much scenery chewing from a couple of supporting actors and a bit too much reliance on drone shots but wow, it rocked me back in my seat.
The stunning scenery, the ambient sounds of Kakadu—birds and insects and rustling trees—make this such an evocative film. However, it is the story that moved me.
I came out with waves of chills and a feeling in my chest I still cannot describe. I do not know my own stories, the stories of my Indigenous Australian ancestors but I felt, for a moment, as if I’d seen a glimpse.
Yes, the story opens with a massacre, but it is not all violence and the violence is less graphic than most computer games.
If you want to see behind the scenes, or hear the actors talk about their experience, go to the High Ground Facebook page. What you will learn is that tradition and culture have been observed right through the production.
The word that keeps echoing for me is ‘agency’—Indigenous Australians were given agency to approve the story, act on screen and work on the production. It is their story being told by them. America has ‘Westerns’, Witiyana Marika has said this is the Australian equivalent, a ‘Northern’.
Simon Baker and Caren Pistorius are very good in their roles and Callan Mulvey lurks with intent well, but this film belongs to the Indigenous actors. Newcomer Jacob Junior Nayinggul plays the central character, Gutjuk. He may have the most beautiful male face in Australian cinema, but he also has incredible presence.
There is a firelit scene under a rock ledge between him and Esmerelda Marimowa which, for me, was a few moments of perfect cinema. It is balanced beautifully by the scene between Gutjuk and his grandfather just before it. Gutjuk is shown two paths and must choose between them.
I have so much respect for the senior cultural adviser, Witiyana Marika, who also produced, sang on the soundtrack and acted as Gutjuk’s grandfather. And was a founding member of Yothu Yindi, by the way.
My respect also goes to Stephen Maxwell Johnson, who directed, for the integrity demonstrated in having so much dialogue in language, for filming on country and for employing so many First Australians in front of and behind the camera.
Stay for the credits, where respect is paid to Australia’s greatly missed musician and (as it says on screen) ‘both ways’ teacher, Dr Mandawuy Ynuupingu; and to ‘Big’ Bill Neidjie, without whom the language spoken in the film would not have been preserved.
