Rolf De Heer is a brilliant film maker whose work examines the plight of indigenous Australians, sometimes bleak The Tracker to the joyous in Ten Canoes. Charlies Country is a beautiful study of an aging indigenous man whose quest is to return to country. In his quest he becomes ill and is found by his friend and is hospitalized in the city of Darwin. His journey stumbles when he becomes a victim of white mans law and is imprisoned as a result of a fracas with the police. He grapples with the boredom of prison life and the suffocating effect it has on indigenous people who are bonded with the land. David Gulpilil as Charlie is sublime as this proud elegant indigenous man. He is a wise man and his silence and stillness says so much. This is David Gulpilils finest performance and one of the finest I have seen on screen. He is truly mesmerizing on screen, and De Heers Direction is a labor of love of its subject.

Charlie's Country is a humorous and insightful look at life of an Aboriginal Australian in the repressive police state down under.

Exceptional take on the outcome of colonisation and destruction of first Australians culture. Superbly directed and shot.

love this movie very powerful

Hollywood could never ever make a move like this - understated, non-melodramatic, no Shawshank Redemption BS. Sure it consists of vignettes, but director de Heer knows the cinematic power of co-writer and main actor, Gulpilil.

One of the better movies I have seen in recent times, Charlie's Country is about the agony of dispossession, and the despondency arising from not being able to live life on one's own terms in one's own birthplace, as depicted through the life of Charlie, an elderly aboriginal who lives in Australia's Northern Territory

A beautiful & important film not only about the physical plight of the indigenous but bringing a lot of emotional struggle to the screen also. The story of Charlie an indigenous man who once had the honor to Dance to the Queen of England out the front of Sydney Opera House on its opening. Now living rurally out of Darwin just simply wants his land & peace from local police. A very necessary & vital film from Australia that really demonstrates the indigenous struggle. A timeless performance from David Gullipili whom is truly one of our greatest.

A beautiful movie that puts a lot of the current issues around indigenous conflict with the modern world to the front...

Another sad aboriginal tail.

Incredibly powerful. As something I didn't know was an issue in Australia, this movie gave a lot of insight with its carefully crafted social commentary on the life of indeginous people in Australia. Definitely worth watching.

Spell binding performance from GULPILIL who shows us an insight into the problems faced by his people.

"And you're to stay away from known drinkers" "Everyone in this country is a known drinker"

Charlie is a man of many opinions. People like him, but they don't seem to care much for him - it seems that his friendships are fake. He lives in some sort of controlled community. He has nothing, but he get's some money every week or so and he is glad to share his money. He get himself some booze or weed. Food is something he rather want to catch himself. While things heats up in his living area, he decides to leave the place - searching for a better life. This journey is anything but vanilla. Superbly acted and it's very pretty to look at. Sadly it's a bit to political or race-driven and it kills it a bit. I get that Aborigines are not liked by everyone, but it seems that this is the only thing this film deals with at times. I like many aspects of the film but the way it develops makes it less enjoyable and less interesting for me. 6.5 out of 10 spears.

Conta a história de um aborígene que foi retirado de sua terra e vive em uma comunidade criada pelo governo e regida pelas regras da sociedade moderna. Eles recebem um salário por mês, e quem não se adapta às regras vai preso ou vive nas ruas. Bom filme que mostra essa triste realidade. Direção simples, porém eficaz.

Australia's official submission into this year's Best Foreign Language category at the Academy Awards, famed director Rolf de Heer's raw, uncompromising and impressively beautiful film is easily the most accomplished and important tale to come from our shores in quite some time and acts as a very personal journey for one of our country's most recognisable actors, David Gulpilil. To understand the power of Charlie's Country and the telling nature of its tale, one must look into how the film eventuated and what it harboured for Gulpilil in particular. Despite his success as an actor that started off in Nic Roeg's Walkabout in 1971, Gulpilil had found himself on hard times, the victim as sadly many indigenous people face in the country of alcohol abuse that saw him incarcerated in a federal penitentiary. Friends for many years after their collaborations in 2002's The Tracker and 2006's Ten Canoes (Australian film's worthy of being tracked down) de Heer visited Gulpilil in jail where the seeds of Charlies Country were formed when Gulpilil expressed a great desire to once more work with his friend and director. From there a story that was close to Gulpilil's heart began to be formed and it's where the quiet understated power of de Heer's work stems from. With a mere look, or with the camera following his every move through the vast beauty of the Australian outback or the more scary surrounds of Darwin, Gulpilil commands the screen and de Heer controls this wonderfully, not at all afraid to let Gulpilil's face tell us all we need to know. In what is undoubtedly a match between the actor and the real man, Gulpilil inhabits this man Charlie with a grace and understanding as he struggles to come to grips with his mother country slowly but surely coming under more influence from the white man. This small scale story of one man's trials and tribulations masks a much larger overall problem Australia has at its core regarding the treatment of our indigenousness people and a failure to properly combine the old and the new without losing the connection to the land and customs that for thousands of years have been integral to the culture of these people. All these elements within Charlie's Country play out in such a manner that never becomes overbearing, for there is subtle humour here (water buffalo anyone?) and grace from all involved that gives Charlie's Country not only a heart but a recognisable humanity. It shouldn't be surprising that Charlie's Country is a finely crafted and effective movie, for de Heer has long shown his ability to create memorably moving films and his previous collaborations with Gulpilil are some of the finest ever made in this country concerning indigenous culture. From Gulpilil's award worthy turn (which was rewarded with a Best Actor win at this year's Cannes Un Certain Regard festival), Graham Tardif's beautiful piano score and de Heers professional direction, this is Australian filmmaking and storytelling at its best and a moving portrait of modern day life in the harsh realities of the outback and the lives our indigenous people live in particular. 4 and a half hand crafted spears out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check out - www.jordanandeddie.wordpress.com

An important story of the gulf between aboriginal life and the new economy. Saw with the whole family though Seth was running the projector.

"Charlie's Country" is a different kind of Australian apocalyptic movie than the ones we're used to seeing. While on a much smaller scale, the movie is no less concerned with the current state and fate of the Aboriginal population. That is embodied in Charlie(David Gulpilil, who also co-wrote with director Rolf de Heer) who once danced in front of Queen Elizabeth to celebrate the opening of the Sydney Opera House. Through a series of tragicomic misadventures in the present day, he comes to realize that the old ways are gone forever. What makes his situation even worse is that the old ways of Aboriginals were not replaced by anything. At best, they are treated like children. At worst, they are treated like criminals.

De film heeft absoluut zijn goede bedoelingen, ziet er schitterend uit en heeft een likable hoofdpersoon maar schiet tegelijkertijd vooral op het einde zijn doel voorbij. En dan hebben we wel genoeg van charlie gezien.

David Gulpilil (Walkabout, The Last Wave) is charismatic as an elderly Aboriginal man in a remote community in the Northern Territory doing it pretty tough by modern standards. You see, his culture has been pretty well eradicated by the incursion of white European culture, leaving him with few options but junk food, alcohol & drugs, and laws preventing him from hunting on his own. When he decides to escape back to the bush to live by the old ways, he finds he is too old and sick to make a go of it. After a stint in a hospital in Darwin, he joins up with a city-dwelling group of Indigenous people from another tribe and ends up in prison. Only returning to his country and getting in touch with his traditions (dance, in particular) can bring Charlie peace. Rolf de Heer's film takes us to a place not often seen depicting situations as current as today's headlines (Tony Abbott's government is cruelly trying to close some remote indigenous communities). However, it often feels didactic, scoring undoubtedly important points at the expense of a more naturalistic feel. Gulpilil (who co-wrote the script) is a star.

A powerful and provocative (if glacially paced) examination of the struggles of Australian aboriginal peoples in a white colonialist society that American audiences will find both fascinatingly exotic and painfully familiar.