Simon Baker, Jack Thompson and newcomer Jacob Junior Nayinggul star in High Ground
The horrors of Australia’s white settlement form a confronting backdrop for Simon Baker’s epic new film.
When Jacob Junior Nayinggul was growing up in East Arnhem Land, he was obsessed with movies. “I was just pretending to be a movie star, when I was a little boy,” he says with a grin.
Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Wesley Snipes’s Blade — it was superheroes, and their stories of action, adventure and triumph, that gripped Nayinggul’s imagination when he was a child playing make believe.
It is fitting then, that on the set of Nayinggul’s first movie, High Ground, he had a superhero moment of his own. Directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson, with the cultural guidance of Yothu Yindi co-founder Witiyana Marika, High Ground is a taut and unflinching drama that begins after World War I, set in the Northern Territory after a horrific massacre in an Indigenous community.
Simon Baker stars as Travis, a former soldier who rescues a young boy named Gutjuk (Nayinggul), one of the only survivors of the attack on his community. Some 12 years later, when Gutjuk has grown from child into man, Travis enlists his support in tracking down a group called the Wild Mob, led by a fearsome warrior, who are roaming through the region and resisting white settlement — a warrior who happens to be Gutjuk’s uncle Baywarra (Sean Mununggurr).
Nayinggul, a ranger in the Gunbalanya Community in East Arnhem Land, was initially drafted into High Ground as an extra, playing one of the members of Baywarra’s Wild Mob. But after just a few days on set — his first-ever film set, for his first-ever film role — Nayinggul caught the eye of the filmmakers.
“He got chosen,” adds Baker, who is sitting next to Nayinggul in Darwin as the pair connect with The Australian via Zoom.
“Remember, we sat down one day and read through a couple of scenes together?” Baker asks his co-star. “Then he started playing Gutjuk,” Baker recalls. “The next day!”
Baker, the star of The Mentalist, Breath and The Devil Wears Prada, is one of Australia’s most respected acting exports. But Nayinggul hadn’t heard of him.
“I didn’t know him, but my family told me that he’s a proper Hollywood star,” Nayinggul admits, while Baker tips his head back and laughs.
On the advice of his family, Nayinggul decided: “I’m going to do it with him.”
In just a few short days, Nayinggul went from being a background player to front and centre in this carefully crafted local drama, which also co-stars Callan Mulvey, Ryan Corr, Caren Pistorius and Australian cinematic legend Jack Thompson.
And though his introduction to the world of cinema was lightning fast, Nayinggul has a magnetic and compelling screen presence, as well as a natural chemistry with Baker. It’s their characters’ relationship, slowly growing closer and closer to each other — before revelations from the past tear them apart — that drives the film forward. Nayinggul already has his sights set on the next project.
“My family — I think they will be telling me to stop, but I look forward to doing some more work with other directors,” he says.
Production on High Ground took place across the Northern Territory in East Arnhem Land and the Kakadu National Park.
“It was tricky to film this movie,” Baker says, “because the locations were remote, it was very hot, and near the end we had some big storms that came through, as we got closer and closer to the wet season.”
There was a full-time crocodile wrangler on set, whose job it was to keep an eye out for the 15 or so reptiles that would circle the causeway on the East Alligator River, which just happened to be the only route in and out of the filming locations.
“What’s great about it is, as an actor, I’ve had incredible opportunities to go to different places around the world,” adds Baker, “but to come and shoot in Arnhem Land and Kakadu, and be on country in places that have enormous significance, and go through the ceremonies where we were sung into these locations before we started filming … Every day we would have discussions about what it was that we were shooting, and the significance of it.”
Baker concludes: “It was an enormous privilege for me to experience just the small amount of it that I did, and it opened up my heart in a way that I don’t think any other film experience ever really has.”
All filming in the Northern Territory was negotiated with the traditional land owners. Nayinggul’s uncle Alfred serves as an executive producer on the film, working to secure permissions for the crew to work on protected Aboriginal country — some of which has never been committed to film before.
Yothu Yindi co-founder Witiyana Marika, who stars in the movie as Gutjuk’s beloved grandfather Dharrpa, worked behind the scenes too, as senior cultural adviser. Marika and Johnson are long-term creative partners, having collaborated on the video clip for Yothu Yindi’s Treaty.
For 20 years, the pair crafted the story for High Ground, drawing on tragic tales passed down to Marika by his grandmother.
The late Dr M Yunupingu, Marika’s Yothu Yindi co-founder, also contributed to the story before his death in 2013, and his work is referenced in the film’s credits.
“High Ground is a both-ways film, First Nations and Balanda,” reads a statement from Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Gumatj leader and brother of the late Dr M Yunupingu. “It depicts a time of trouble in Australia; it honours our old heroes, reminds us of the past and the truth of our joint history in the country.”
Baker first heard about the movie in 2017, after seeing Johnson and co-star Thompson at the Garma Festival of Indigenous Culture. Thompson was already signed on to star in the film — High Ground is a labour of love for him, so much so that the actor made the movie while also having dialysis after being diagnosed with end-stage kidney failure.
“He was remarkable,” Baker enthuses. “In 42 degree heat he’d work full days, always eager and happy to do everything and another take, and every third day would sit on a dialysis machine for four to five hours. And then come back to work the next day. That’s inspiring. He’s a wonderful human being.”
Back in 2017, Thompson encouraged Baker to come on board with the project.
“I’ve known Jack for a long, long time — since the beginning of my career,” says Baker, “and he’s always been full of love and support.” Plus, Baker had recently returned to Australia after 20 years living overseas.
“My experience at the Garma Festival opened me up,” Baker says. “I was fascinated by the fact that this country holds the longest existing cultures and civilisations in existence — and we largely ignore it. That kind of started to blow my mind. I was just curious, and that curiosity led me to want to be involved.”
Making High Ground turned out to be a transformative experience for Baker.
“To be able to come back to this country and be invited into those places — I felt incredibly privileged,” he reflects. “It was very moving.”
The actor describes the feeling of being in these sacred spaces as “incredibly powerful”. “It’s very hard to describe in words how strong that energy is,” Baker adds.
And then there was the subject matter of the film: brutally honest about the atrocities that have been committed in our past. For Baker, that’s exactly why High Ground is so crucial.
“Normally, in our white fella society of convenience … with privilege comes choice to avoid uncomfortable situations,” he explains. On the set of High Ground, digging into Australia’s dark history, Baker found himself faced with the task of then “sitting and having breakfast in the morning with, basically, descendants of people who have been treated so poorly for so many years and who carry that grief”.
It was confronting, but necessary. “I feel like there’s a lot of talk about healing our nation and coming together,” Baker says.
But in order to do that, he believes all white Australians have to face these confronting truths head on.
“We have to be able to look at the truth, and sit in that truth, and allow people to grieve,” he says, “and allow people to be angry. And not be scared of that — of feeling uncomfortable in our own shame or guilt.”
High Ground is in cinemas on January 28.