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Gary Black’s voice (Nathan Phillips) introduces the story: The Prospect Bay Australian Rules football team has made the grand final for the first time in years. The coach, the local butcher (Kevin Harrington), gives a post-game rant to his young players, telling them to forget ‘finesse’ and ‘go the guts’ (up the centre). The players snigger behind his back – especially best friends Gary Black (Nathan Phillips) and Dumby Red (Luke Carroll).
Curator’s notes
The opening scene establishes a strong division – not between blacks and whites, but the young and the old, and even the educated and the non-educated. That carries on through the rest of the film in various ways – Blacky’s relationship with his father, for instance. The film sets up two camps with a huge generation gap – the adults, for whom racism is a given, and the young people, for whom it’s not yet an insurmountable fact. The rich comedy of this scene eases the viewer into a fairly confronting story. It also establishes a sense of the importance of football in the community, for both blacks and whites.
