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Jedda (1955)

play May contain names, images or voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
clip Marbuck's madness education content clip 2

This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Marbuck (Robert Tudawali) and Jedda (Ngarla Kunoth) are in a cave. Marbuck, gradually losing his mind, begins to hallucinate. After being sung by the older men for breaking tribal laws, Marbuck believes he is dying. Jedda is panicked. How will she survive in this land if Marbuck dies? She will die also. This gives Marbuck the idea to kill Jedda so that he may live, for if Jedda dies, Marbuck has broken no laws.

by Romaine Moreton, Indigenous curator

A moment that brings the narrative to conclusion; what is the consequence of breaking white man’s laws, tribal laws and the attempted assimilation of a member of what is promoted as a very old race, in one lifetime? The descent into madness, the punishment for Marbuck breaking tribal laws, sees both Marbuck and Jedda – the tribal black and the partly assimilated black – in a moral and cultural no man’s land. The climax of the film speaks of the inhospitable land, as well as the futility of attempting to assimilate Aboriginal people.