"Manganinnie" was part of the Australian "New Wave" of the seventies and eighties, and like a number of other New Wave films ("The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith", "Picnic at Hanging Rock", "Breaker Morant", "Gallipoli", "The Man from Snowy River") it deals with the country's history, in this case the Black Wars (a conflict over land between the aboriginal peoples of Tasmania and the white settlers and the colonial authorities of the 1820s and 1830s). The title character, Manganinnie, is an Aboriginal woman whose husband is killed by the colonial troops. While searching for the remnants of her tribe she comes across Joanna, a young white girl who has become separated from her family. Although the two cannot speak each other's language, Manganinnie looks after Joanna as though she were her own child and tries to teach her some of the traditions of her people. Finally, however, the older woman realises that her way of life has been irrevocably destroyed, and makes the decision to return Joanna to her family.
Much of the dialogue is in an Aboriginal language. (Presumably one from the Australian mainland as the indigenous languages of Tasmania have long been extinct and little is known about them). No subtitles are provided, yet I never had any difficulty in following the basic story.
There are similarities between this film and Nicolas Roeg's "Walkabout", the film which can be seen as having launched the "New Wave". Although "Walkabout" had a contemporary rather than a historical setting, it also dealt with the relationship between white and Aboriginal Australians. In that film two white children, a boy and a girl, are lost in the outback when they are discovered by an Aboriginal boy. Although he cannot speak any English, and they do not speak a word of his language, they manage to communicate using sign language and the Aborigine uses his tracking and hunting skills to help the children. The relationship between Manganinnie and Joanna parallels that between the characters in "Walkabout".
I would not rate the film as highly as "Walkabout", but then I would regard Roeg's film as a masterpiece and as the finest film ever made in Australia, together with "Picnic at Hanging Rock". It is not a film with a single, obvious meaning, but a hauntingly beautiful cinematic poem in which many meanings can be found each time one sees it. "Manganinnie" is less complex, but it is nevertheless an excellent piece of work. It is an elegiac lament for one of the great tragedies of Australian history, the way in which the ancient Aboriginal cultures of the continent were all but destroyed by the encroachment of the settlers. It is a moving story of a friendship between two people from opposite sides of a profound cultural divide, a friendship which is only possible because the child Joanna has not yet developed the prejudices which lead her elders to see the Aborigines as "savages" or "barbarians" rather than simply as fellow humans. 8/10.
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