Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

The Tracker (2002)

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clip Mutiny education content clip 3

Original classification rating: M. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

The young policeman, known in the credits as the follower (Damon Gameau) takes control after his boss, the fanatic (Gary Sweet) opens fire without warning on a family of Aborigines. The fanatic is now placed in irons. The tracker (David Gulpilil) watches these events in silence.

Curator’s notes

Rolf de Heer replaces most actual depictions of violence in the film with paintings, depicting the outcome of such violence. This hardly reduces the film’s impact; instead it draws attention to the uses of screen violence, and gives a sense of the ways in which stories – and perhaps history – are made.