By Andy Ford, Warrington South CLP member
Goldstone is the fifth feature film from indigenous Australian film maker Ivan Sen, and his second film using the character of Jay Swan, a mixed-race detective in the Australian outback, played by Aaron Pederson. The film also includes David Gulpilil, famous from being one of the first indigenous actor to be given a starring role in a film, Walkabout, released in 1971.
Moving on from 2013 (See Mystery Road reviewed by Left Horizons) Goldstone considers not just the aboriginal situation in modern Australia, but also the Chinese contribution to the economy and society. The action takes place in the outback mining town of Goldstone, where a huge mining company has corrupted the town council and is in the process of corrupting the aboriginal land council in order to expand its mining operations.
‘Old Jimmy’ played by David Gulpilil, is one of the elders resisting the mining company’s machinations. Chinese women are being trafficked to a brothel outside the mine and Swan has been sent to find one of the girls who has gone missing.
The local policeman, Josh, must decide whether to turn a blind eye to the mining company corruption and trafficking going on in front of his eyes, or to throw his lot in with detective Swan, and this ambiguity gives the film a lot of its tension. Also, Mei, one of the trafficked women, must decide whether to accept her situation or to trust Josh to help her escape.
Ivan Sen is a very visually stylised film maker, and the overhead and long distance shots of the Australian landscape bring to mind the aboriginal dot paintings that depict the land from above, and one of the central passages of the film is where Jay Swan is taken by Old Jimmy to an aboriginal sacred site in a hidden complex of waterholes in the desert.
An alternative central passage is a huge gun fight between Swan and Josh on one side and the company thugs on the other. To me this bit went on too long and had no particular message or tension, but maybe Ivan Sen feels he has to include conventional Hollywood motifs to have a sellable film!
Once again, Ivan Sen has produced an outstanding film, one which blends different Australian cultures to build understanding of diverse experiences. It is well worth seeing.
Goldstone was shown recently on BBC2 and is still available on the BBC i-player here.
