Metro Australia — January 2018

90 •Metro Magazine 195 | © ATOM

experiences of urban success, his celebrity, his tragedy.

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the artist’s kin,^4 VROG WKH FRS\ULJKW IRU $ PLVWDNHQO\ DV

suming the new lease would run only seven years rather than

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tations that someone in charge of all this, surely, will want

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formances of the stage play-@L@SIHQ@, developed by direc

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in the documentary, distracting from its essential focus on the

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here between the contemporaneous creation of the play and

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less of a cultural product and more like another personal

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rather than closing in on the artist and his cultural resonance.)

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it is only after long conversations about the play’s represen

tation of their ancestor – not least by an Anangu man – that

Arrernte community elders agree to the performance. From

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onto a vaster social and cultural canvas. Indeed, more than

being just a biography of a great man,-@L@SIHQ@ /QNIDBS

examines the artist’s story and accomplishments primarily

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his grandfather is long gone, dead – as if to clarifysome

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the artist’s own community, however, the living value of

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work. His art hangs on museum walls, but it also lives in the

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All of these narrative threads link the documentary to

something bigger still. Begun in 2009 and run by arts and

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Project has been described as:

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The ‘project’, in other words, is not a singular production

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play is itself a part of this multifaceted endeavour, which

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tures’^7 for the community, including the reclamation of the

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The-@L@SIHQ@ /QNIDBSdocumentary is, thus, unashamedly

a mouthpiece for an organisation and a particular agenda –

something that was especially evident at the 2017 Melbourne

International Film Festival premiere, at the conclusion of

which envelopes were handed out for donations to the trust.

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tion to ask. And perhaps the most immediate and obvious

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WKH UHDOZRUOG LQYROYHPHQW RI-@L@SIHQ@ /QNIDBS’s viewers,

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recourse to its activist objectives, what we have in-@L@SIHQ@

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on its own terms – for both the accomplishment of its story

telling and its emotional power. As stated, the documentary’s

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ligently directed and pieced together. One must also note the

astonishing intimacy the camera establishes with members

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lish that level of genuine trust. The most powerful example

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really successful works, at some point the various elements

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me get land.’

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establishing a deep and trusting relationship with a particular

(and, in this case, famous) family,-@L@SIHQ@ /QNIDBSexposes

the stark injustice at the foundation of our modern nation.

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personal family. Though it would be incorrect to suggest that

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tice, in representing its subjects and their stories, the essential

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disgracefully lodged in the history of dispossession. Almost

sixty years after the artist’s death, the shameful gap between

his prestige and the impoverishment of his people remains

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creations while his family and community remain in poverty.

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