Manganinnie

The last survivor of a doomed Aboriginal tribe goes walkabout with a little white girl, initiating her into the mysteries of the Dreamtime before finally falling victim to the guns of early European colonists in the infamous Black Drive. A Disney insistence on cute baby wombats and other assorted fauna mar the film, although the narrative itself is aeons away from the fresh-faced vigour of those ripping adventure yarns, at first seeming maddeningly slow, then assuming a dreamy, languid rhythm of its own. And despite the facile nature/culture clash turning on a Noble Savage stereotype of long lineage in Australian cinema, the fact that Manganinnie echoes history (the brutal 19th century genocide of the Tasmanian aboriginal race) lends this first project from the Tasmanian Film Corporation a curious poignancy as a small act of contrition.