The Last Daughter review: I was in tears and I defy anyone not to be moved by this story

Powerfully moving film The Last Daughter reveals that, in NSW, Aboriginal children were still being taken from their parents and handed over to non-Indigenous families as late as 1973.

Brenda Matthews, front, in The Last Daughter

The Last Daughter (PG)
In cinemas
★★★★½

Fifteen years after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s landmark apology in parliament to the Stolen Generation, reverberations from that misguided policy still linger as can be seen in an outstanding documentary, The Last Daughter. The film examines the bitter legacy of the doubtless well-intentioned but disastrously misguided program on two families, one black and the other white.

It’s estimated that between 1905, when the policy was established, and 1969 some 100,000 Indigenous children were forcibly taken from their families and fostered with white parents.

This powerfully moving film reveals that, in NSW, Aboriginal children were still being taken from their parents and handed over to non-Indigenous families as late as 1973. That was the year that three-year-old Brenda, together with her siblings, was abruptly taken from her parents in the NSW town of Gilgandra, apparently because the Welfare Department deemed that they were not being properly cared for. How they came to this conclusion is unclear. It’s revealed that Brenda’s father was a Christian and a preacher and when we meet her mother, also named Brenda, the old lady vehemently denies that her children were ever neglected.

The whole sorry story appears to have been a case of paternalism gone insane.

Brenda was fostered by Mac and Connie Ockers, a delightful couple who, interviewed for the film, make it clear how very much they loved this little Aboriginal girl. The Ockers already had two children, and Brenda and her “sister”, Rebecca, became inseparable. Brenda was happy – until, five years later, in 1978, when the Ockers applied to adopt her only to be told that “things have changed” and Brenda is abruptly removed from the happy home of her foster parents and returned to her Aboriginal family who, by this time, were complete strangers to her.

“We thought we were the heroes, but we were the villains of the piece”, laments Mac Ockers. Reunited after such a long time with her real family, Brenda felt she was an intruder. “I felt that I was travelling through a house with nowhere to rest” is how she explains it. As she gets older, she becomes angrier: “I had to get answers. I had to find out who I was.”

The cruelty of this government meddling in the lives of families comes across strongly in the film. Two families find themselves torn apart, and for what?

When, eventually, answers are sought from the NSW government the mid-boggling response is that, because Brenda was born in 1970, she couldn’t have been taken from her family because that policy ended in 1969. Even Donald Trump would have trouble with that example of calling black white.

By the end of the film, I was in tears and I defy anyone not to be moved by Brenda Matthew’s story. What’s all the more remarkable is the fact that she directed the film of her life herself, in collaboration with a young Adelaide filmmaker, Nathaniel Schmidt. Using old photographs, a few well-handled re-enacted scenes, and numerous interviews, the film unfolds its sad – but ultimately uplifting – story lucidly and passionately.

Much credit is due to everyone before and behind the camera and also to the Adelaide International Film Festival for supporting the production of this unforgettable film.

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Red, White and Brass (PG)
In cinemas
★★★½

Red, White and Brass is an engaging feel-good movie based, we’re assured, on real events. It’s set among members of Wellington’s Tongan community and much of the dialogue is in Tongan which lends it an aura of originality.

In 2011 the Rugby World Cup was being held in New Zealand and Tonga was playing against France. Maka (John-Paul Foliaki), a cheerful, enthusiastic young man, attempts to buy tickets for himself and his mates but hands over his cash to a conman and, by the time he realises that his tickets are worthless, discovers that the game is sold out. When he learns that the organisers of the event are seeking a traditional Tongan marching brass band to play a warm-up before the game – and that they’ll be given free seats – he persuades his mates to form a band, even though none of them has ever played or marched before.

They practice at first with plastic bottles, but Maka’s father Rev Pita (Lupeti Finau), who is a pastor at the church serving this very religious community, is at first an obstacle, objecting to the very idea of his son and his friends making fools of themselves in front of a vast audience. When the old man eventually relents it’s his superior (Nathaniel Lees) who refuses to allow the band to play.

First-time director Damon Fepulea’i leaves no cliche unturned but the film works on its own terms thanks mainly to the lively performances of the Tongan actors. Even the inevitable scene in which the chief opponent to the band has a last-minute change of heart works, familiar as it is.

It’s hard to believe that this tall tale is true, but you’d like it to have happened exactly as it’s depicted on screen.

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Driving Madeleine (Une belle course) (MA15+)
In cinemas
★★★½

Driving Madeleine is a sentimental tale of a friendship between a taxi driver and an elderly woman. Charles (Dany Boon), bored with the hours he spends behind the wheel and with just two points left on his licence, gets an assignment to drive 92-year-old Madeleine Keller (Line Renaud) across Paris.

The sprightly old lady has suffered a bad fall and can no longer live alone in an apartment in the leafy suburb where she’s been content for years; her destination is an old people’s home.

The journey takes Charles and his garrulous passenger from one end of Paris to the other, with a great many diversions along the way. Madeleine persuades the initially reluctant Charles to take her to the places she remembers from her youth. As they drive she tells him about the affair she had with an American GI during the liberation of Paris; an affair that resulted in the birth of her son, Mathieu – Alice Isaaz plays Madeleine as a young woman. Working in the theatre with her mother she met Ray (Jeremie Laheurte) who married her but who proved to have a violent temper and beat her and her son; her revenge on her tormentor lands her in even more trouble.

As the drive continues Charles gradually warms to this old woman who has such painful memories. They share some unexpected moments – among them, Charles’ cab blocking a narrow city street when Madeleine urgently seeks a toilet, or Charles running a red light and having to negotiate with a couple of traffic cops.

Renaud and Boon make a delightful couple, lovers of Paris will be thrilled as the cab passes various famous landmarks or drives down lesser-known suburban streets, and the sentimental ending jerks the tears.

The French title translates as “A Good Trip” and that about sums it up; this is not a very original film but it’s a disarming one. My only real quibble is a personal one: director Christian Carion uses the Etta James version of the lovely 1940s ballad “At Last” not once but twice; my childhood memories of the Glenn Miller original recording have prevented me from ever appreciating James’ far more strident version.