Identity Crisis in Charlie's Country

There is an extended shot of actor David Gulpilil's face late in Charlie's Country that is devastating in its authenticity. Gulpilil's Charlie, behind prison bars, his dark hair and white beard shaved, has lost all sense of his identity.

Like many Australian Aborigines, Charlie is a stranger in his own country. His home is a government settlement in Arnhem Land, a region of Australia's Northern Territory. He spends his days walking the dirt streets of the village, voicing his concern over the lack of quality food in the only market store, making small talk amidst the constant buzzing of insects, and sleeping in his government paid for housing, which amounts to nothing more than a wooded platform and a mattress.

Charlie has his frustrations, but he maintains a sense of humor and camaraderie with the other villagers. That begins to change after a couple of run-ins with the white policemen stationed in the village. Charlie and a neighbor get their guns and truck confiscated after shooting a water buffalo for meat. Still wishing to hunt, Charlie carves a traditional spear, only to have the police take it as well.

Charlie's inability to provide for himself as his ancestors did, governed by prohibitve rules established by outsiders in his native land, drives him to the bush to live off of the land. The venture starts off well. Charlie fashions a hut, spears fish and cooks them beneath burning embers, and his inherent connection to the land and his heritage springs forth from hibernation. Then, a health setback leads to an emergency flight to a hospital in Darwin. Separated from his village and the land he calls home, Charlie's mental state and sense of self begin to deteriorate. He flees the hospital, falls in with a group of displaced Aborigines living in a wooded area just outside the city, begins drinking heavily, and ends up in prison.

What makes Charlie's Country so moving is the palpable sense of inner turmoil Gulpilil conveys with little dialogue and spare facial expressions. Gulpilil has lived this life, feels these frustrations, and can't be said to be acting here. With every distrusting look he receives and injustice he suffers, he embodies the collective pain of his people, who have lost so much and cling to their tradition and pride like life preservers.

Australian cinema has produced several frightening examinations of its nation's soul. Wake in Fright focused on aggressive male bonding and alcoholism in a brutal Outback town; Picnic at Hanging Rock used the unexplained disappearance of a group of boarding school girls to tackle themes of repressed sexuality; and Walkabout, also starring Gulpilil, looked at the consequences of the communication gap between white and Aborigine culture. With Charlie's Country, which is more straightforward in its approach to Australia's cultural divide, we are presented with an Australia that is teeming with history and mysticism. But like Charlie's Country's title character, Australia risks the loss of its true identity.