In my last column, I mentioned that Beneath Clouds (2002) was Aboriginal director Ivan Sen’s first feature film.
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Growing up in Inverell, Sen’s mother was Aboriginal and father, Croatian; the film reflects some of his own experiences.
In 2011, Sen returned to the North with Toomelah, the story of Daniel, a 10-year-old boy living in Toomelah. Toomelah is a former Aboriginal mission located near Boggabilla. Ivan Sen’s mother grew up at Toomelah so, like Beneath Clouds, there is a family connection to the movie.
After being suspended from school for threatening to stab a classmate with a pencil and finding there is little to do in his town, Daniel decides that he wants to be a part of the gang controlling the local drug trade. He decides to help Linden, a local drug dealer. Bruce, one of Linden's rivals, is released from prison and a turf war erupts.
In Toomelah, several things stood out in my mind. One was the connection to the evolving story of New England’s Aboriginal peoples, something I have written about before and will return to.
A second was the connection to an emerging trope in New England film and culture more generally, the connection with the local and regional.
New England locations were selected primarily because they fitted with the story and were photogenic, but that was it. We wouldn’t know that it was one of our films unless we specifically recognised the scenes. Equally importantly, nobody else would either.
Toomelah was very location-specific, about an aspect of northern life.
Another film in this class is New England film maker Belinda Chayko’s 2010 film Lou. Filmed in Murwullimbah, this is a quintessentially Northern Rivers film, if with a modern setting.
Most of the descriptions of this and other New England movies are forced into other people’s tropes. I quote from the start of the IMDb description: “Living in rural NSW, working-class single mother Rhia is struggling to evade debt collectors and raise three young daughters.”
Who would want to watch that? In fact, while there are some rough spots in the film, it’s a good movie that explores issues relevant to our life today. It’s also very much a Northern Rivers film, as anyone who knows the Northern Rivers would recognise.
The final things that stood out in my mind with Toomelah, and indeed Lou, were the colours. I will come back to this in my next column.
Jim Belshaw’s email is ndarala@optusnet.com.au. He blogs at http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com.au/ (New England life) and http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/