The price of a ticket to Toomelah, Ivan Sen’s unsparing portrayal of Indigenous community life, should include a stiff drink.
The film unfolds in far-north New South Wales, on the remote Toomelah Station – formerly Toomelah Aboriginal Mission – a wreck of dilapidated housing; graveyards of little white crosses, and rusty, hulking cars; echoes of the Stolen Generation; welfare dependency and a near-complete disconnect from culture.
This is the place 10-year-old Daniel (Daniel Connors) calls home.
His father is absent and drunk, his mother in a perpetual yarndi haze, and the nearest Daniel has to a role model is friendly neighbourhood gangster and drug-dealer Linden (Christopher Edwards).
An incursion on Linden’s patch forces Daniel to decide whose side he is on – and threatens to propel him into the thuggish life he dreams of.
It is a beautiful, wretched vision; well served by the talented young Daniel Connors and sister Danieka, who lends the film a sorely-needed note of innocence as love interest Tanitia.
But aside from a few genuinely funny moments, there is no feel-good twist here; no hint of redemption to come – and the film is more powerful for it. (ST) ****
