Customer Reviews

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great film, adapted from an excellent novel by Thomas Kenneally, author of Schindler's List. Whereas the novel is darkly farcical, Schepisi's film is coolly tragic. Shot with wide-angle lens in an almost documentary style, it tells the story of Jimmie, a half-breed aboriginal young man in 1900 Australia, brought up alternately by his full-blooded tribal relatives and a well-meaning but clueless white Methodist minister. The minister has implanted in Jimmie the notion that if he works hard and follows the rules, he might one day be lucky enough to marry a poor white girl and raise light-skinned children who might then go on to marry other poor whites. Why, Jimmie's grandchildren will be scarcely black at all! How wonderful! So, he works hard, follows the rules, and finally marries a poor dim white woman who's carrying another man's child. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he works or how politely he behaves, he is rebuffed and humiliated at every turn. One horrible night, he reaches his breaking point and lashes out with sickeningly bloody consequences and thereby becomes the object of a nation-wide manhunt.

What lifts this film above most others dealing with racial strife is its steadfast refusal to paint Jimmie's plight in simplistic shades of black and white (no pun intended). Most of Jimmie's employers are, by their own lights and the standards of their time, decent and well meaning. Their main sins are obtuseness, stinginess, and arrogant condescension: they tend to humiliate and manipulate Jimmie because they believe it's "for his own good". The aboriginal tribal elders, too, continually exploit Jimmie by insisting that he honor his "obligations" to them (i.e., give them money for whiskey), although this now-degraded system of tribal obligation only goes one way. Reduced to hopeless drunkards and sponging derelicts, these elders are hollow men who have lost whatever it was that gave their tribal traditions any meaning. But even these wretched people are still more pitiable than contemptible. The only real monster in the whole story is police constable Farrell, a sadistic brute who schools Jimmie in the methods of mayhem.

On the run, accompanied by his full-blooded aborigine cousin Mort, Jimmie embarks on an insane quest for vengeance, a quest he knows can only end in futility and endanger everyone he cares about, especially Mort. There's a particularly memorable and affecting episode involving an asthmatic young schoolmaster whom Jimmie and Mort have kidnapped. The schoolmaster, with a weird mixture of genuine sympathy and cunning self-interest, plays the two cousins off against each other. It's a remarkable scene that somehow encapsulates the bizarre relationship and impenetrable barriers between the two worlds, white and aborigine.

All the actors are excellent, but I must single out Freddy Reynolds for his amazing performance as cousin Mort. It's the most convincing portrayal of cheerful innocence and deep devotion I've ever seen. Mort represents what's being lost forever with the wholesale destruction of the aboriginal way of life, and shows why that loss is a tragedy beyond words.

I haven't seen this film in years but I remember vividly the bright yet airless feel in Schepisi's outback scenes and his use of landscape to distance us from the tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The only faults were some elliptical editing, where it's a little unclear who does what to whom during a night ambush, and some nearly unintelligible aborigine-cockney dialogue. But these are very minor flaws in an otherwise brilliant film.

I hope this film is transferred to DVD soon and given the royal treatment. Jimmie Blacksmith deserves it.

The film never gets the credit its due and sadly this is because it is nearly impossible to find or rent.

The film is excellent and is one of the best biopics i have ever watched.

A true story well told, this film for me, if released today would be on par with "The City of God".

Find it, rent it, buy it. This is 5 star independent film making at its best.