Ten Canoes
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''Ten Canoes'' is a 2006 Australian
historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, period piece or just period) is a dramatic work set in the past, usually used in the context of film and television, which presents history, historical events and characters with varying degrees of fiction s ...
/
docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...
film directed 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 Peter Djigirr and starring Crusoe Kurddal. The film is set in
Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territorial capital, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compa ...
in northern Australia, before Western influence, and tells the story of a group of ten men doing traditional hunting in canoes. A narrator tells the story, and the overall format is that of a moral tale. It was Australia's submission to the
79th Academy Awards The 79th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2006 and took place February 25, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m ...
for the
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film The Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (known as Best Foreign Language Film prior to 2020) is one of the Academy Awards handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given to a ...
, but was not accepted as a nominee.


Synopsis

The film is set in
Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territorial capital, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compa ...
, in a time separate of Western influence, and tells the story of a group of ten men in a traditional hunting context. The leader of the group, Minygululu, tells the young Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil) a story about another young man even further back in time who, like Dayindi, coveted his elder brother's youngest wife. The sequences featuring Dayindi and the hunt are in black and white, while shots set in distant past are in colour. All protagonists speak in indigenous languages of the Yolŋu Matha language group, with subtitles. The film is narrated in English by
David Gulpilil David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil (1 July 1953 – 29 November 2021) was an Australian actor and dancer. He was known for his roles in the films Walkabout (film), ''Walkabout'' (1971), Storm Boy (1976 film), ''Storm Boy'' (1976), ''The Last Wave'' (1 ...
, although versions of the film without narration, and featuring narration in Yolŋu Matha, are also available. Minygululu tells a story of the warrior Ridjimiraril, who suspects a visiting stranger of kidnapping his second wife. In a case of mistaken identity, Ridjimiraril kills a member of a neighbouring tribe. To prevent all-out war, tribal laws dictate that the offending tribe allow the offender to be speared from a distance by individuals of the tribe of the slain man. The offender is allowed to be accompanied by a companion, and in this instance he takes his younger brother, Yeeralparil. Whenever one of the two is hit, the spear-throwers will stop, and justice will have been served. Ridjimiraril is hit and mortally wounded but survives long enough to return to his camp, where he is tended to by his eldest wife. When he knows he is dying he performs a ritual dance and once dead his hair is cut and his body is painted to enable the ancestral spirits to guide him to the next world. The elder brother's kidnapped second wife then finds her way back to the camp. She reveals that she had been kidnapped by a different tribe, much farther away and had taken this long to return. She mourns her lost husband, who had attacked the wrong tribe, though now she and the elder wife take his younger brother as their new husband. The younger brother, who was only interested in the youngest of the three wives, now has to care for all of them, and satisfying their many demands is clearly going to be much more than he wished. Minygululu tells this story in the hope that Dayindi learns of the added responsibilities of a husband and elder statesman in the tribe, and in the end we see Dayindi withdrawing from his pursuit of Minygululu's young wife.


Cast

The actors and actresses, mostly from Ramingining in East
Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territorial capital, Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compa ...
, speak various dialects of the Yolngu Matha language family. Crusoe Kurddal is from
Maningrida Maningrida ( Ndjébanna: ''Manayingkarírra'', Kuninjku: ''Manawukan'') is an Aboriginal community in the heart of the Arnhem Land region of Australia's Northern Territory. Maningrida is east of Darwin, and north east of Jabiru. It is on ...
and speaks Kuninjku. * Crusoe Kurddal – Ridjimiraril * Jamie Gulpilil – Dayindi/Yeeralparil *Richard Birrinbirrin – Birrinbirrin *Peter Minygululu – Minygululu *Frances Djulibing – Nowalingu *
David Gulpilil David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil (1 July 1953 – 29 November 2021) was an Australian actor and dancer. He was known for his roles in the films Walkabout (film), ''Walkabout'' (1971), Storm Boy (1976 film), ''Storm Boy'' (1976), ''The Last Wave'' (1 ...
– The Storyteller *Sonia Djarrabalminym – Banalandju *Cassandra Malangarri Baker – Munandjarra * Philip Gudthaykudthay (of Bula'Bula Arts) – The Sorcerer *Peter Djigirr – Canoeist/The Victim/Warrior *Michael Dawu – Canoeist/The Stranger *Bobby Bunungurr – Canoeist/Uncle *Johnny Buniyira – Canoeist/Warrior *Gil Birmingham – Canoeist/Warrior *Steven Wilinydjanu Maliburr – Canoeist/Warrior


Production

The title of the film arose from discussions between de Heer and
David Gulpilil David Dhalatnghu Gulpilil (1 July 1953 – 29 November 2021) was an Australian actor and dancer. He was known for his roles in the films Walkabout (film), ''Walkabout'' (1971), Storm Boy (1976 film), ''Storm Boy'' (1976), ''The Last Wave'' (1 ...
about a photograph of ten canoeists poling across the Arafura Swamp, taken by anthropologist Donald Thomson in 1936. It is the first ever movie entirely filmed in
Australian Aboriginal languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
. The film is partly in colour and partly in
black and white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...
, in
docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...
style largely with a narrator explaining the story.


Locations

* Arafura Swamp,
Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...
, Australia * Arnhem Land, Northern Territory * Ramingining, Northern Territory


Release

''Ten Canoes'' was released on 29 June 2006.


Reception


Box office

At the end of 2006, the film stood as one of the highest grossing Australian films of that year. By October it had made just over $3,000,000 from a budget of $2,200,000. ''Ten Canoes'' grossed at the box office in Australia.


Critical response

''Ten Canoes'' has an approval rating of 98% on
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, 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 ...
, based on 66 reviews, and an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus states: "''Ten Canoes'' combines adventure, comedy, and anthropology to explore an Aborigine folk tale both fallibly human and legendary. Helmer Rolf de Heer depicts a barely represented oral tradition with a clean style".
Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...
assigned the film a weighted average score of 82 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


Accolades

''Ten Canoes'' won the
Un Certain Regard (; 'A Certain Glance') is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's official selection. It is run at the Debussy, parallel to the competition for the . This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob. The section presents 20 films with unusua ...
Special Jury Prize at the
2006 Cannes Film Festival The 59th Cannes Film Festival was held from 17 to 28 May 2006. Chinese filmmaker Wong Kar-wai served as jury president for the main competition, the first Chinese to preside over the jury. English filmmaker Ken Loach won the Palme d'Or for th ...
. De Heer rejected claims he is a white director making an Indigenous story: "People talk about, what is a white director doing making an Indigenous story? They're telling the story, largely, and I'm the mechanism by which they can." ''Ten Canoes'' was screened at the
Sydney Film Festival The Sydney Film Festival is an annual competitive film festival held in Sydney, Australia, usually over 12 days in June. A number of awards are given, the top one being the Sydney Film Prize. , the festival's director is Nashen Moodley. Histo ...
in June 2006 and was released nationally on 29 June 2006. In October 2006 ''Ten Canoes'' was chosen as Australia's official entry into the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2007
Academy Awards The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
, thus becoming the third Australian film to be considered for the award (following ''Floating Life'' in 1996 and '' La Spagnola'' in 2001). ''Ten Canoes'' was nominated for seven Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards, of which it won six. The movie won the awards for Best Picture (Julie Ryan, Rolf de Heer producers), Best Director (Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr), Best Screenplay - Original (Rolf de Heer), Best Cinematography (Ian Jones), Best Editing (Tania Nehme), and Best Sound (James Currie, Tom Heuzenroeder, Michael Bakaloff, and Rory McGregor). It was also nominated for Best Production Design (Beverly Freeman). It won three awards from the
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 ...
: Best Film, Best Editing (Tania Nehme), and Best Cinematography (Ian Jones). (The latter award was a tie with David Williamson's work on '' Jindabyne''.) The film was also nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. ''The Balanda and the Bark Canoes'', a documentary that aired on Australian network SBS and which detailed de Heer's experiences making the film, won Best Australian Short Documentary for de Heer, Tania Nehme, and Molly Reynolds. The documentary explores the interplay between cultures in a film project immersing a '' balanda'' (white man) into the intricacies of kinship systems impacting the casting of the film as well as giving some voice to the inner conflicts of indigenous peoples today caught between the world of their heritage and that of modern life. This aspect has been explored by academic D. Bruno Starrs with regard to the "authentic Aboriginal voice". The film received the Grand Prix for Best Film at
Film Fest Gent Film Fest Gent, also known as International Film Fest Gent, is an annual international film festival in Ghent, Belgium. The festival held its first edition in 1974, under the name Internationaal Filmgebeuren Gent, and has since grown into the la ...
in 2006. The film ranked #72 in ''
Empire An empire is a political unit made up of several territories, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...
'' magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.


Awards


''Twelve Canoes''

After ''Ten Canoes'' sparked worldwide interest in
Yolngu The Yolngu or Yolŋu ( or ) are an aggregation of Aboriginal Australian people inhabiting north-eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. ''Yolngu'' means "person" in the Yolŋu languages. The terms Murngin, Wulamba, Yalnuma ...
culture, a spin-off educational project known as ''Twelve Canoes'' was born, in collaboration with the people at Ramingining. A website, videos and study guide were created, focussing on twelve key subjects. The film of the twelve segments was shown on SBS TV in Australia, and has been available online. The DVD was released in 2009, and the website continues to be available.


See also

*
Cinema of Australia The cinema of Australia began with the 1906 production of ''The Story of the Kelly Gang'', arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received international recogni ...
* South Australian Film Corporation * '' Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner'', a 2001 Canadian film entirely in
Inuktitut Inuktitut ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...
by
Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...
actors, also about an ancestral aboriginal legend also involving the sexual jealousy of brothers. *
List of submissions to the 79th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
* List of Australian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film


References


External links


Official website at Palace Films
*
''Ten Canoes'' at the National Film and Sound Archive
{{Authority control 2006 films Australian comedy-drama films Films set in the Northern Territory Films directed by Rolf de Heer 2006 comedy-drama films Yolngu Films about Aboriginal Australians Films by indigenous directors Yolngu-language films