trailer break: ‘Bran Nue Dae’

Mate, you've got to see this film. It is based on a stage musical that took Australia by storm a couple of decades ago.

The trailer plays up Geoffrey Rush's involvement, because he's world-famous and the young Indigenous actors that carry the film are unknown.

He is seen through their eyes. Hence the caricature. This goes to your issue of "default white male gaze", MaryAnne - good, eh?

Also, that's Ernie Dingo playing the old derelict character! In Australia, he followed up his comic role in that horrible movie (I can't even say its name) with being a popular TV presenter on a travel show. So we weren't expecting this. His is a shocking and confronting performance, made bearable only by being very funny.

Issues of dispossession and colonisation are so horrible, and ongoing, you have to laugh or cry. This movie chooses to laugh, and there's strength and defiance in laughter.

If we'd been paying attention we would have expected this (which is probably the point). Dingo is a terrific actor of stage and screen. Has been for ages. Travel shows and Playschool are generally what actors have to do to earn a crust. Check out Dead Heart and the TV series Heartland (introducing Cate Blanchett) for two of the more penetrating looks at Australian race relations that he features in.

Thanks for the tip, Muzz! Did you like Bran Nue Dae?

Embarassingly, I haven't seen it yet. your endorsement might help me overlook my general dislike of musicals though.