Winter’s Bone. Now on general release, I saw this at the Melbourne International Film Festival. I’d just seen a few blockbusters so at first it seemed amazingly low-tech and needy in its demanding of sustained attention. The film works with a subtle narrative so it won’t appeal to everyone but it effectively sketches out the lives of a group of Ozark mountain people. What struck me was the eros of their attachment to the animals they hunted for food and those they kept a pets. For some Murri rural workers this eros was a transmutation in a post-colonial setting of the original relationship with land and creation. I count myself fortunate in that I’m part of a minority who were actually connected to people who embodied it. Some of the women in Winter’s Bone looked like they had Native American ancestry as well, so I wasn’t completely surprised to read an interview with the director in which she talked of the importance of animals to the Ozark community she worked with and the Native American connection.
Jindalee Lady. Thanks to Jane Brown, School of Culture and Communication Library Manager, for arranging a screening of this film at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. We never quite untangled the riddle of why this film is almost impossible to see. Johanna, Jane and I watched it, and a consensus opinion was that though Brian Syron’s film may be naïve in its cinematic technique, and some of its representations, there is nothing naïve in its emotional power. The film is a tribute to Aboriginal women centred on conception and the mother-child connection. Lydia Miller amps up the intensity with an outstanding performance.
Age and Hypocrisy. We’d received emails from a Settler woman from another university who’d received some grant and was inviting people to a workshop. (The workshop included the usual genuflections to Indigenous people.) It looked like it could be relevant to our program but on the day of the workshop we couldn’t attend because it clashed with our School planning day. As a compromise I arranged for a 20 year old high-achieving Aboriginal undergraduate (who does some work for me as a research assistant) to attend as an observer. The intention was for AIS academics to attend further meetings. The woman who had been emailing us was notified by email that this would happen. On the day of the meeting there was torrential rain and despite having a bad cold the research assistant put on a shirt with a collar and leather shoes and headed off to the workshop. On arriving at the room where the workshop was supposed to be he was confronted by a middle-aged Settler woman whose opening gambit was, ‘Who are you?’ and who then dismissed him with the words, ‘I think you’ve come to the wrong place.’ If he’d only confirmed that woman’s name I’d be doing a lot more with this but that’s where mentoring comes in.
Age and Marginality. A post-graduate student of mine (in his early twenties) presenting a paper at one of those off-campus/para-university events was subject to an unchecked half hour of blather and personal attack by an ‘independent scholar’. I’m not blind to the imperfections of sandstone universities and the University of Melbourne but I sincerely believe that this couldn’t have happened if it had been held at the University of Melbourne. In fact I was surprised the other week when attending a contentious paper presented by a visiting scholar on Indigenous issues, at the fairness and courtesy of the critique by University of Melbourne scholars.
Incidents like these and our continued response to them are the substratum necessary for the advancement of Australian Indigenous Studies.
Volunteering. If you know a student or recent graduate who is interested in volunteering Youth Challenge Australia is worth considering. More on these opportunities next year.
http://www.youthchallenge.org.au/
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