Charlie’s Country

Darwin: Hospital
1:05:00 – 1:10:03 minutes

Charlie wakes in hospital. The doctor asks if he can call Charlie ‘Charlie’ as he has difficulty pronouncing foreign names. Charlie feels even further isolated, wondering if he is now to be considered a foreigner in his own land. He wanders the rooms and finds Albert, the sick man from his own community. They hold hands. They have a connection with each other but they have been disconnected from their land. Charlie is visibly shaken. Tethered to the hospital by a tube, Charlie feels trapped. He pulls out the tube and checks out. Once again he tries to break free from white society.

Darwin/Hospital Quote

‘Do you mind if I call you Charlie? I have difficulty pronouncing foreign names.’
‘Now I’m a foreigner?’ (Charlie and the doctor)

Darwin: Longrassing
1:10:03 – 1:22:20 minutes

Charlie meets faith at the ATM. She asks if he is buying grog. What follows is a repeating scene of buying alcohol, sharing it with others and waking up in the make shift camp. The repeating scene is a sign of the cycle that Indigenous people are trapped in without direction or hope. The purchase of the alcohol is always a tense moment, the shopkeeper viewing them suspiciously and warning them of a crackdown on buying alcohol for others. De Heer shoots most shots of this time at ground level with the characters sitting. It conveys the feeling that this is rock bottom for Charlie.

Pete and Old Lulu speak with Charlie. They are upset that he is with Faith as she is the wrong skin group for him. He has broken a traditional law in choosing to be with her. They warn him that the drinking is not good for him. Charlie ignores their advice and continues until the police arrive. Charlie, who has been building with frustration since the initial scenes, erupts and declares that this is his land. He makes a stand by rushing at the car with a shovel and smashing the windscreen.

Police officer Luke jumps out and is equally explosive, spouting obscenities and striking Charlie. He yells that he has been betrayed. He says he regrets not chasing Charlie after the car incident and that he has learned that you can’t trust blackfellas. As he calms down, he apologises for hitting Charlie and says he can’t just sit in the grass and call it the old ways. There is truth in Luke’s point, as the shots of the longrassers resemble the sitting positions of the traditional tribal circles but the introduction of alcohol makes it different. Charlie says it’s the same as the old days because the whites are still trying to change Aboriginal culture and have a say in how they choose to live.

Darwin/ Longrassing Quotes

‘You gonna buy some grog? Are you banned?’
‘I’m okay…’ (Faith and Charlie)

‘They should just shoot us… …like in the old days.’ (Charlie)

‘You bring shame to us. She’s wrong skin for you. You’ve broken the law. And that’s poison you’re drinking, it rots your brain.’ (Black Pete and Old Lulu)

‘Where’s your home, eh? This is our land, you bastards!’ (Charlie)

‘You treacherous fuck! Come on, I trusted you! You fuckin’ turn on me, you fuckin’ useless black bastard!’ (Luke)

‘Sorry for hittin’ you, Charlie. You know, you can’t just sit on the grass all day and call it “the old ways”. These times have changed.’
‘No, they haven’t. You’re still trying to change our culture to your bastard culture!’ (Luke and Charlie)

Darwin: Prison
1:22:20 – 1:37:20 minutes

Dressed in a suit, Charlie appears in court. His hair is tied back, a sign he has been forced to conform in order to try and avoid jail. However, he still makes a stand with his resistance speech. He speaks in language, highlighting the difference between the man on trial and system that is trying him. De Heer accentuates the height of the magistrate’s chair, portraying power and authority. Charlie explains this is his country, his home, and that he was living peacefully when the police came to throw him out. This encapsulates the colonisation experience. His conclusion, that he has no more to add, signifies Charlie’s resignation that a long argument would have no benefit since he is powerless.

The sentence is jail and Charlie is shorn of his long hair, a figurative stripping of power and individuality. De Heer frames the shot like a photo and rests on the solitary face for impact, allowing the viewers to compare the once laughing, long-haired Charlie now reduced to a sad shadow of the former, dressed in prison greens in a dark room.

The recurring piano score underlines the sorrow of the situation, pointing to the cyclic sequence of life in prison. The film’s use of the cyclic effect as portrayed in Charlie’s life is a prominent reminder of the recurring struggle for Indigenous Australians. He hunts, his weapon is taken; he makes a spear, it is taken; he drinks night after night, he is arrested; he is imprisoned, working the laundry day after day, and constantly watched.

Black Pete comes to visit and says it’s hard to speak to him because he looks different. There is now a chasm between them. Black Pete explains that he is to be trained as a ranger in Darwin and then work in the community. Compromise.

After some time Charlie is paroled. His parole officer, another white face telling him rules, sets out that he is to stay away from known drinkers. Charlie is bemused and explains that everyone is a known drinker. The parole officer responds that what was meant is ‘known to police’. More amusement for the older and wiser Charlie. He states that the police are known drinkers. Although humorous, it highlights the absurdity of the laws that are now imposed on Charlie’s freedom.

Charlie’s time in prison is documented by de Heer through a montage of shots of a broken Charlie staring through the fence, long strands of barb wire, barred doors closing and finally Charlie, in the dark, declaring that he wants to go home.

Darwin/Prison Quotes

‘This mean my country is my home. That means… …I was living in my home……nice and peacefully. Then the police came… to throw me out. That mean… nothing more to say.’ (Charlie to magistrate)

‘White fellas locked me up for being aboriginal. I wanted to live in the white fella’s way now.’ (Charlie)

‘Hard to talk to you when you don’t look like you.’ (Black Pete)

‘Your gonna report to me weekly. You’re gonna show up on time. .. banned from buying alcohol. …you won’t be allowed to associate with known drinkers.’ (Parole officer)

‘Everyone in this country are known drinkers. Police are known drinkers. Tell them not to associate with me.’ (Charlie)

‘I want to go home now… back to my own country… where my place is…’ (Charlie)

Community: Teaching
1:37:20 – 1:48:00 minutes

Charlie returns to the community and is in the bush when Black Pete and Old Lulu find him. He seems happier and his symbolic hair is returning. Black Pete announces that he is a ranger with a gun licence and is uniformed and employed. They ask again if Charlie will teach the young people to dance. Charlie had occasionally reminisced of the time he had danced for the Queen when she opened the Sydney Opera House and of the prized photo of the event which he possessed. Charlie agrees to teach the young people.

Charlie now has a job and plays a part in ensuring that culture is passed on. Culture can be seen as surviving through a person surviving. Charlie leads the kids in full dance costumes and tribal paint.
The final scene shows Charlie siting by a fire, thinking, silent. It invites the viewers to join him in pondering the past and the future, to consider the intrusion of others in Charlie’s life, his painful cyclic struggle and the tenuous future of his culture.

Community/Teaching Quotes

‘What are you doing in the bush?’
‘You know I like it here.’ (Old Lulu and Charlie)

‘Okay, I’ll teach them. I’d like to do it.’ (Charlie)

‘I’ve danced there! For the opening of the Opera House and the Queen was there too… I’ll show you, eh?’ (Charlie)