One Night the Moon Film

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One Night the Moon (2001), is based on the events that took place in the harsh Australian outback in the early 1930s. The film evolves when a young girl, Emily, goes missing into the mountainous terrain of the Australian outback one night to follow the moon. Her family, European settlers, though desperate to find her, fail to employ the skills of a local Indigenous tracker, Albert Riley, due to their own racism. Perkins uses many literary elements such as camera angles, music, dialogue and editing to shape meaning and to influence her audience. One Night the Moon, introduces song into the Australian landscape, Indigenous people have always used song to talk about the land, and song itself has always been one of the central means of land management. One Night the Moon has been described as “A beautiful, seemless film with the ability to transport the audience.” Perkins endorses the idea that White settlers have failed to learn anything from the original inhabitants of this land and to support this statement, she layers the literary elements to highlight the racism, connection with the land and also contrasts the two male protagonists in the film. Despite their desperate needs to find their missing daughter, Jim refuses to let indigenous tracker, Albert to assist him in his search to find Emily. Albert is a police constable within the local police, yet Jim is blind and is unable to see him as equal to the other policemen because of the colour of his skin. Jim is assured by the police sergeant that “Albert’s the best tracker around.” This suggests that the local police do not see Albert differently to themselves, that they value him equally and use his skills to help them in their means to help their people. As the film is set in... ... middle of paper ... ...sed in the first scene; the white family appear more superior over the aboriginal family, music, such as the Celtic music used in early scenes to foreground the idea of white settlement and the reluctantcy to incorporate any values or ways of life that the original inhabitants had. Her powerful dialogue seen in ‘this land is mine’ scene, which significantly empowers to audience to question whether the white settlers have failed to incorporate any of the ways of life and values of the Indigenous people. Finally, Perkins’ fine editing skills allows audiences to physically see the contrasts of the two families and their beliefs, values and ways of life. From the film, audiences can learn, and also forces them to question whether they have failed to learn from the original habitants of the land they live in today. Works Cited Moreton, One Night the Moon, 2014

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