White settlement of Australia first took place, inadvertently, on June 4 1629 when the Dutch East India Ship Batavia was wrecked on Houtman's Abrolhos (which means "open your eyes" in Portuguese), a small group of inhospitable islands off the West Australian coast. Three hundred civilian passengers were left to wait as Commander Pelsaert and most of the officers sailed in a small boat to Batavia (now Jakarta) for help.
Left under the command of the deputy VOC commander, a psychopath called Jacob Cornelius, the passengers entered a three-month living hell of murder, rape, enslavement, and deranged tyranny under Cornelius' gang. Only 116 survived.
This story has it all. There's even good guys - Wiebbe Hayes, a Dutch soldier who resists Cornelius' thugs after being marooned with other soldiers on a nearby island.
And how's this for a gripping climax? Cornelius is captured by Hayes, but the rest of his gang a still at large as the Dutch rescue ship comes over the horizon. There's a desperate seaborne race to get there first, to win the authorities to their side of story.
SO WHERE'S THE FILM, Australia???? This is sheer madness. This story is unbelievable - and true. Why the constant failure of the imagination in this country? The failure to see how great, how universal even, some of these magnificent tales are.
And I've been watching the fantastic The First Australians series. Same goes for that - perhaps more so. Ok, so we've had The Tracker, yes, but where's the movie about Pemulwoy and the resistance around Sydney? He and his warriors took Parramatta! Its an incredible tale. And Jandamurra in the Kimberleys? The Kalkadoons at Battle Mountain in Queensland? Why are we so pathetic at this? New Zealand is way ahead on this score.
Is it that we daren't offend the pathetic denialist sensibilities of certain high profile culture warriors? Or is it a deeper malaise, a cringing disbelief that any story taking place here is worth telling? Or worse - are we just plain scared of the truth? That we might displace Cap'n Cook from his endless victory in grade 7 social science texts? Or demonstrate how constant was the Indigenous resistance?
Honestly, I'm sometimes genuinely embarrassed by this country's never-ending adolescence. Here's hoping it changes with the apology. I think it might, actually. I'm optimistic. Now, a good start would be some quality films on key episodes of our history - exciting, wild tales, like those above. Do I ask too much?
UPDATE: Hooray! Some googling suggests there may be a film about the Batavia (starring Vinnie Jones) underway. I'll believe it when I see it. This project has been mooted before. But still.... no Aboriginal resistance movies? Come on!!
10 comments:
Bruce Beresford to the "rescue".
http://australianscreen.com.au/titles/wreck-batavia/
I believe there's also an opera. A bad one, naturally.
Thats right Liamista - but thats just a doco with just a few "reconstructiony" scenes. 48 mins.
God, but no cigar. I want lights, I want cameras, I want ACTION!
PS I tried to comment at Chez Tuyas the other day, and your word verification tool is like Fort Knox!!
I'll buy that for a dollar. I suspect the chief problem with these guerillero movies would be budget, requiring the movie to appeal to the overseas audiences.
*sound of crickets chirping. In the distance a lone coyote howls, then morphs into Johnny Cash, fondling a dwarf cowboy on a deserted highway*
The movie I want to see, which would be a relatively low-budget psychodrama with intensely moody atmospherics would be the one about Alexander Pearce, the Irish cannibal convict escapee from Sarah Island in VD Land...
...and here 'tis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Confession_of_Alexander_Pearce
And - BMSACMB - they're making a SECOND fillum on't:
http://www.dyingbreed.com.au/
By all means, I beg of thee, watch the execrable trailer.
I can just imagine the pitch to Griffin Mill: "It's Wolf Creek meets Deliverance...in Tasmania! With hot Oirish chicks!"
Orstraya, ur doin it rong.
Rong is right, Fyodor. Jaysus, that trailer hurt my soul, I had to abort! In any case, rural Tasmanian towns are enough of a horror show as is - "sure we don' need some Micks koomin ere tellin' us dat!"
OTOH, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce sounds altogether more promising, and I will inquire of me local vid store, known for its excellence with obscure objects of desire.
Thinking of other OZ films actually made about historical incidents, there was one about the 1891 shearer's strikes. But it wasnt that good, from memory (its 20 years since Ive seen it), and I cant even remember its name.
Much better was "Sunday too far away" about a strike in the 1950s, with Jack Thompson.
But the Australian film industry post 2000.... Oh, the inanity!
There is indeed an opera, Batavia, music by Richard Mills and libretto by peter Goldsworthy. I haven't seen it, but I've read big chunkis of the libretto, which is lovely:
'...And shrinks the sum of all I know
To this: there is nothing
In the Seven Seas as turbulent
As the four small chambers of the heart.'
*Peter*
*chunks*
(Scuttles off to refresh proofreading skillz.)
Hey Pav, trust me, this is not the blog to apologise for under-proofing!
Nice libretto lines. Weird connection: Richard Mills grew up next door to my grandparents in Sandgate, QLD.
False etymology apparently.
'In the Portuguese language of the time, abrolhos meant "spiked obstructions"...'
Let Wikipedia be your friend....
Well Chris, the Abrolhos have treacherous reefs just below the surface, hence the instruction to "open your eyes" from the Portuguese (who were always everywhere first in the Indian OCean).
Literally: "abra seus olhos", contracted to Abrolhos. Im quite sure it came to mean naval "obstructions" - but I find wiki hard to believe here. Thats clearly a contraction of two Portuguese words, for my money. And the sense is of course quite consistent.
In essence: I'm going to declare wiki and its reference wrong there! You'll see here's other views on the same wiki page.
I'm American, and I want the film version too! Was the movie ever made? One of my favorite books as a kid was a fictionalized account of this shipwreck.
Post a Comment