''The Tracker'' is a 2002 Australian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

meat pie Western Australian Western, also known as meat pie Western or kangaroo Western, is a broad genre of Western-style films or TV series set in the Australian outback or "the bush". Films about bushrangers (sometimes called bushranger films) are included i ...

directed and written by

Rolf de Heer Rolf de Heer (born 4 May 1951) is a Dutch Australian film director. De Heer was born in Heemskerk in the Netherlands but migrated to Sydney when he was eight years old.

and starring David Gulpilil, Gary Sweet and Damon Gameau. It is set in 1922 in

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a ...

Australia where a colonial policeman (Sweet) uses the tracking ability of an

Indigenous Australian Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

tracker (Gulpilil) to find the alleged murderer of a white woman.

Plot

1922, somewhere in Australia. An Aboriginal man is accused of murdering a white woman, and three white men (The Fanatic, The Follower and The Veteran) are on a mission to capture him with the help of an experienced indigenous man (The Tracker). As they travel through the rugged Australian outback, each suffers under the stern hand The Fanatic, who will stop at nothing to bring the accused to justice, even if that means sacrificing the others to reach the goal. Meanwhile, the motives of the tracker remain elusive, and despite their relentless pursuit the men always seem to be a half-day behind their quarry. After the death of one of the men, and a surprise mutiny, what endgame awaits for the group, and the enigmatic Tracker to which they have entrusted their survival.

Cast

* David Gulpilil as The Tracker * Gary Sweet as The Fanatic * Damon Gameau as The Follower * Grant Page as The Veteran *Noel Wilton as The Fugitive

Production

The film was shot in the semi-arid, rugged Arkaroola Sanctuary, in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

Flinders Ranges The Flinders Ranges are the largest mountain range in South Australia, which starts about north of Adelaide. The ranges stretch for over from Port Pirie to Lake Callabonna. The Adnyamathanha people are the Aboriginal group who have inhabit ...

. De Heer used an intentionally small film crew, saying that ''"It's all a much better process ..."''. The film is intercut with paintings by Peter Coad which portray brutal actions not shown, while the lyrics of the soundtrack (written by De Heer) form part of the narrative, and are sung by

Archie Roach Archibald William Roach (8 January 1956 – 30 July 2022) was an Australian singer, songwriter and Aboriginal activist. Often referred to as "Uncle Archie", Roach was a Gunditjmara and Bundjalung elder who campaigned for the rights of Abori ...

with music composed by

Graham Tardif Graham Tardif (born 1957) is an Australian screen music composer. He is the composer on ten feature films directed and written by Rolf de Heer. Their most acclaimed collaboration, '' The Tracker'' (2002), resulted in an APRA-AGSC Screen Musi ...

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

the film has a score of based on reviews from critics, with an average rating. Based of 16 critics on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film have a score of 71 out of a 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Film critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four calling the film "haunting" and the performances "powerful".

David Stratton David James Stratton (born 10 September 1939) is an English-Australian award-winning film critic, as both a journalist and interviewer, film historian and lecturer and television personality and producer. Life and career Born in Trowbridge, ...

described the film as "remarkable". Walter Addiego of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...

'' wrote "See the film mainly for the quiet and powerful work of Gulpilil in the title role". ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yo ...

''s Jay Antani was quoted saying "''The Tracker'' is the first significant movie to find its way into American theaters in 2005".

Awards and nominations

Soundtrack

A Soundtrack was released in August 2002. The album is credited to Australian musician

. The soundtrack won best soundtrack at the 2002

Film Critics Circle of Australia The Film Critics Circle of Australia (FCCA) is an association of cinema critics and reviewers. It includes journalists in "media, television, major national and state papers, radio, national and state, online and freelance writers, Australian ...

. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2002, the album was nominated for ARIA Award for Best Original Soundtrack, Cast or Show Album ;Track listing #"Wide Open Spaces" (instrumental) - 1:20 #"Far Away Home" - 3:41 #"Trouble Coming" - 2:22 #"Approaching" (instrumental) - 0:29 # "My People" - 3:49 #"After the Valley of Sorrow" (instrumental) - 0:29 #"All Men Choose the Path They Follow" - 5:16 #"Walk to Destiny" (instrumental) - 1:45 #"The Chain" - 2:18 #"A Spear" (instrumental) - 1:05 #"Contradiction" - 2:02 #"Life Matters" - 0:44 #"Friction" (instrumental) - 1:15 #"Gungalaria" - 3:16 #"Hanging Tree" (instrumental) - 0:40 #"My History" - 3:45 #"Drowning" (instrumental) - 2:02 #"Hope Always" - 4:27

Release history

References

External links

*
The Tracker at the National Film and Sound Archive
at Vertigo Productions
The Tracker
at Oz Movies {{DEFAULTSORT:Tracker, The 2002 films Australian Western (genre) films Archie Roach albums APRA Award winners 2002 Western (genre) films Films shot in Flinders Ranges Films directed by Rolf de Heer Films about Aboriginal Australians 2000s chase films Films set in 1922 Films set in the Outback 2000s English-language films