Film review: The final journey of renowned Australian actor David Gulpilil
Narrated by Hugh Jackman and rapper Baker Boy, a new documentary takes audiences deep into Arnhem Land for the remarkable 10-day funeral of screen legend David Gulpilil.
This feature-length documentary begins with an act of generosity. A formal invitation is flashed on the screen, for all of us, from the families of movie star and tribal man, David Gulpilil. We’re invited to attend his 10-day funeral in Arnhem Land. This film lifts a curtain on a part of Australia rarely seen, in a monumental act of generosity and instruction. Yet the camera doesn’t feel like intrusion, but enticement; to step inside this world for a short while. To understand.
The screen legend died in 2021 in South Australia’s Victor Harbor, aged 68. He wanted to be returned to a Top End swamp at Gulpulul, where he was born, for his spirit to be set free. The water goanna was his totem, so he had to be buried along that songline.
His birthplace has no electricity or running water and it was a challenge for filmmakers Trisha Morton-Thomas and Maggie Miles, but they’ve captured extraordinary footage of Gulpilil being danced and sung home. Hugh Jackman and Danzal Baker (Indigenous rapper, Baker Boy) are our narrators.
Along the way we see archival footage of “Mr Storm Boy’s” extraordinary life. The charismatic kid cast in Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout at just 17; “because I was the best dancer”. We hear him talk of meeting Queen Elizabeth and of partying with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. He was one cool dude. At his peak, he charmed the world.
The history of Gulpilil feels like the history of our nation in recent times; the history of a burgeoning Australian film industry as it reckoned, restlessly and fearlessly, with our troubled past.
Gulpilil carried the weight of tribal Yolngu lore into the world. He instructed us in life, with lightness and wit and warmth; and now instructs us again, in death. Indigenous people are presented as industrious, disciplined, cohesive; they’re working together, ingeniously, to get things done. It’s not the usual NT stereotype and it’s refreshing to have this balancing narrative.
In one extraordinary sequence, a stranded Gulpilil speaks in longing and grief of his wish to be returned home, in death – and here we now have it, on film (you may cry; I did.) Yes, secret sacred things are hidden from cameras, as they had to be, but we see a lot. This movie lifts a curtain on a very special part of Australia; like nowhere else on earth. It’s a documentary to take to the world.
Journey Home, David Gulpilil, in cinemas from October 30.
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