Patience is a central theme in 'Ten Canoes'. A young aboriginal man must be patient in his quest for a wife, and patient when listening to the stories of his elders, which can take days to recite. It takes just an hour and a half on screen, but we the audience must also exercise patience, for it unwinds slowly, and by modern Western standards, could have been told in much less time. Its worth it though, for we experience a fantastic cultural journey to Australian swamplands, where tribes live in small huts and hunt with spears, but have much the same troubles as anyone else - the desires and quarrels of love, complete with dick jokes. When a man's wife is stolen following the appearance of a stranger, said to be a sorcerer, he becomes revengeful, and walks a bloody path that ends in a fascinating death dance. The entire film is narrated, as though the elder is speaking to us directly, just as the story would be told in its natural setting. This breaks the golden 'show, don't tell' rule of filmmaking, but is apt for the purpose, and offers a unique cinema experience. Far from Hollywood and typical storytelling methods it feels authentic, and with no technology or fashion to indicate the era, 'Ten Canoes' is timeless, a tale just as relevant today as a thousand years ago.
Review of Ten Canoes
