Ten Canoes

Here's a little talk I gave before Block Cinema's screening of Ten Canoes:

Ten Canoes is a postmodern film, in that the main narrator speaks from the present, telling a story about his distant ancestors, and, as he speaks, the camera switches to be in their world – which shot in black-and-white – and we hear them speaking. But not always: sometimes we find ourselves watching their story while the present day narrator's voice continues.

The story that is told about these ancestors is about a time when the older brother told a story to his younger brother about an episode in the life of their ancestors, back not too far from the beginning of the world. Now this doesn't sound too postmodern so far, but, interestingly, the main narrator also narrates this second story – and it is shot in colour, giving the impression that this far, far distant time is somehow more real than time that is more near.

My guess is that this is because Aboriginal culture is grounded in the past. The film speaks about the “same law now as then” and the very fact that the contemporary narrator is teaching us viewers by telling us a story set in the past, and that in this story, the older brother teaches the younger by telling him a story set in the past, shows the authority of the past for guiding life in the future.

There is wisdom to this and we Westerners can learn much from it, for we too easily dismiss our past and our ancestors. We even think we are superior to the recent past – to our grandparents – and only rarely do we turn to them for wisdom and advice. And yet, as the film portrays the more distant story (the one shot in colour) we see that, rather than being unusually wise, even perhaps semi-divine people (as I think the Aboriginal ancestors are often portrayed, by both Aboriginal people and by respectful whitefellas), they are ordinary people, not so very different to us. They joke around, fart and worry about their appearance. The women are jealous and nasty to each other, a man's opinion isn't believed by his friends and husbands and wives get crabby with each other and escape out of the home for some time to themselves. When planning what to do next, they imagine idealised, comic scenes. They speak of someone being at the waterhole like we would speak of someone being outside Myer and they can recognise who carved a spearhead like we can recognise someone's handwriting.

So what is the wisdom that these ordinary, ancient ancestors have to offer the people who come after them? Well there are all sorts of things, but one thing the film picks up on is the law. This law contains the way that the community of people is to live. The film doesn't pretend that this law solves everyone's problems or makes everyone perfect, but it does keep a certain order to society. So when someone is murdered the murderer must receive 'payback'.

This reminded me a lot of the history of the Jewish people, the spiritual ancestors of Christians. They also had a law that they had to obey, a good law that kept a certain order to society. But, as with Aboriginal culture, it didn't solve everyone's problems or provide an answer for the ongoing ugliness of people's motives and cruelty. That came later with Jesus. But that's a story for another time. For now, let's sit back and enjoy Ten Canoes.