Follow to rabbit-proof fence...

On January 20, 2009, America will inaugurate a new president. It's first African-American president, to be precise. One can only sense that a biopic will be in the works somewhere in the near future.

Political films, both biographical and issues-based, are no stranger to American audiences. But what of the Aussies? Surely a country with such a rich and unique history must want to preserve it in filmic form.

In my searches, almost all of the Google hits for "Australian political films" lead to films about race. This is something we've seen in class multiple times already. We've had the portrayal of native Aboriginal land invaded by white Britons in Walkabout. We've seen the reverse in Romper Stomper, where white Australian skinheads fight back against Vietnamese immigration. But there are many other films that deal with these racial tensions.

Once such film is Philip Noyce's 2002 film Rabbit-Proof Fence, about the Aborigines' "Stolen Generations". The film depicts the story of three young half-Aboriginal girls who escape from a government camp in the 1930s where they were to be trained as domestic servants. It was thought at the time that it would be "beneficial" to the Aborigines to fully incorporate into white society. A.O. Neville, played by Kenneth Branaugh in the film, wrote, "Eliminate the full-blood and permit the white admixture to half-castes and eventually the race will become white," essentially enforcing the idea that the Aborigine race needed to be bred out. These policies remained in effect throughout a significant portion of the 20th century. The girls in the film were eventually successful in their escape, which is detailed at the end by showing two of them today. It's a very simple, yet powerful and effective film. The DVD review can be found here.

Others include the little-seen 1952 documentary Mike and Stefani, Australian Rules, about white and black conflict on the football field, and Lucky Miles, about a group of Iraqi and Cambodian men trying to brave the Outback after being dumped there by their boat.

However, some have become critical of the current political landscape of Australian film. "Immigration since 1946 has probably changed this country more than any single factor, but you'd never know it from our national cinema. It's as if we came from nowhere," one reviewer writes. Last year, the Syndey Underground Festival had a specific emphasis on the political. "There seems to be a serious degree of conservatism that has crept back into the system," veteran director David Perry said. America is now being brought in another direction, and maybe Australia will do the same.