SEPTEMBER

Australia, 2007, 85 minutes, Colour.
Clarence John Ryan, Xavier Samuel.
Directed by Peter Carstairs.

A beautiful film, modest in scale, a portrait of a period which raises significant Australian issues. It is a story with few words and a great deal of contemplation of the countryside and the characters.

The story takes place in 1968, a year after Australians voted that aborigines should have the vote (something forbidden in the 1901 Commonwealth constitution). However, rights for aborigines and the overcoming of racism and racist superiority are matters still in progress. Part of the Australian examination of the past and a basis for apologies to indigenous Australians is looking at stories like this.

The plot is straightforward. Two teenagers, one black and one white, are friends. They share a lot of time together, especially afterschool boxing and sparring – the white boy’s afterschool time since the aboriginal boy works on the farm all day. The work of their fathers symbolises their status. The white man is the farm owner. The aboriginal man works for the white man and lives in a house away from the main house.

New neighbours arrive including a young girl who has an attachment to the white boy.

New legislation comes in whereby aboriginal workers are to be paid just wages. The owners feel that they cannot pay and let their workers go.

Both these events cause a distance between the two friends, a growing hostility and, unfortunately and inevitably, a separation.

While September is a West Australian harvest month and is the beginning of spring, the tone of the film and its issues are rather autumnal.

1.A piece of Australiana, themes, images, issues?

2.New South Wales standing in for Western Australia, the fields, the wheat, the farms, town, school? The atmospheric score?

3.The visual style, contemplative, audiences gazing at the landscapes, the characters? Time to reflect?

4.The title, the month, the season, the end of winter, harvest, spring?

5.The 1968 setting, the 1967 referendum for Aboriginal votes? The economy? Just payments for Aborigines? The issues of racism?

6.The detail of life on the farm, the farmer and his wife, the work, the children? The contrast with the Aboriginal family, the jobs, the father and his work on the farm, the wife keeping house? Paddy and his working for the farmer?

7.The two boys, the white boy going to school, the black boy waiting for him to return? Work on the farm, play, making their own boxing ring, sparring, sharing? The equality and the joy?

8.The build-up to a sense of crisis, the economic crisis, the father, his having to let the Aborigine go, his not seeing the justice? The mothers and their sharing, talking?

9.School, the teacher, the boy responding to the classes? The girl, friendship? The clashes with Paddy? Their age, lack of experience, hurting each other – and later regrets?

10.Paddy, the work, his feelings about his father, having to go? His being hurt? Going to leave? The boy following him, the lift? Into town? Going to the travelling boxing show? His future?

11.The white boy, the regrets? Wounds – and the possibilities for healing?

12.The teacher, her role in the town, instructing, support?

13.A glimpse of the past? Australian characters? Black and white? The heritage? The changes – and foreshadowing the future?