Summary Of Rachel Perkins Filmic Opera, One Night The Moon

Explain how the language used in your prescribed text changed your perceptions of identity. (20 marks)

The power of storytelling enables composers to masterfully create transformative narratives, prompting audiences to reshape and reconsider perspectives of themselves and their surrounding communities. Rachel Perkins' filmic opera, One Night The Moon employs evocative cinematography and music to not only artistically expose the systemic racial bias against Indigenous Australians, but to also disrupt the prevailing Eurocentric norms within 1930s Australia. Mirroring the constitutional values of the Early Settler’s myth, Perkins investigates society’s xenophobic tendencies that eventually catalyse the innate motivations of Indigenous Australians

Thus conveying how inevitable societal shifts are ignited as Perkins immerses audiences within a visual narrative that catalyses the re-evaluation of conventional beliefs and forge a unified national identity.

The underlying colonialist rhetoric and xenophobic views within early Australian culture has rendered itself obsolete as evolving societal paradigms have prompted audiences to transcend traditional perspectives and embrace a modern unified world view. Framed through the postcolonial lenses, Perkins' filmic opera One Night the Moon, represents the concept of the Early Settler myth rooted in man, mateship and master of the land, and examines the need to transform conventional views to suit the modern world. In the film’s prologue, audiences are introduced to Jim, who encompasses the Early Settler ideology of excluding other cultural minorities, yet, this identity is challenged with his failure to provide for his family. In the opening scene, a birds-eye shot of Jim slumped over a table, accompanied by a subdued colour palette consisting mainly of brown, Perkins portrays Jim’s downfall

Through the exploration of the deep seeded archetype of the Lost Child, where the children of young settlers would wander off into the untamed bush and disappear forever, Perkins cautions modern audiences of the denial of adopting inclusive outlooks which eliminate xenophobia in One Night the Moon. Initially, both Jim and Rose neglect the mateship and expertise of Albert, yet the shortcomings of doing so become undeniable as the film progresses. The aforementioned consequences of this prejudice are most poignantly visible through the road to church scene. A close up camera shot of both families illustrates the Kelly Family shunning away from the greeting of Albert. Furthermore, Perkins alludes to the ramifications of exercising such prejudice when Jim and Rose ward Albert off their land exclaiming, “There is to be no blacks on my land.” with the close shot depicting Jim and Rose physically above Albert, as such. hinting at the failure to find Emily without Albert. However, this aversion is proven worthless as Emily’s looming doom becomes increasingly imminent, and Jim's inability to shift from the paradigms of the early settler mindset to a place of acceptance and an embracing of "the other" catalyses the tragic ending of the film. Despite the seemingly