John misread his immaculate timetable - the times crossed over the turn of the page - and we turned up at Darwin Airport this morning to find we'd missed our scheduled flight to Melbourne via Alice Springs. Six hours later we're waiting on an alternative - direct to Melbourne - that should get us home to Bendigo just after midnight. I can't imagine a nicer way to wait - chatting to each other and to strangers, blogging, emailing, phoning, snacking and gazing. There's something about concourse limbo that excuses inaction - giving us unexpected freedom to think and write and read.
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Extract from an email from someone met on a seminar:
Bran Nue Dae - released 2009, official website and - Samson and Delilah by young Aboriginal filmmaker Warwick Thornton ... 'an extraordinary young filmmaker with a unique style and much to say. A very tough film. Watching it, I felt I was in the hands of a master, as I feel when I'm watch a Pedro Almodóvar film. Now I know that's big praise but I'm sure you would be profoundly affected by this film...'... and a small piece by way of notes for the talk I want to give between drinks at the Durrell School one evening next February on page 6 of the November Agiot and pleased to see Paul has posted my YouTube sketch of the Agiotfest09 evening on the home page of the event's website
*see also this piece on Bran Nue Dae by Prof Paul Makeham
Aboriginal aesthetic expression is in itself political, since Aboriginal culture has not 'learned' to de-politicise the aesthetic. Therefore, representations of landscape in a contemporary Aboriginal production such as Bran Nue Dae necessarily reflect a political rather than merely 'cultural' aspect of Aboriginality. The motif of the journey, too, by evoking what is in effect an Aboriginal political practice (the song cycle), also reflects an Aboriginal politics - what might be termed a politics of movement. (p.8)
