The Tracker (2002)

The signature moment in Rolf de Heer's The Tracker comes early. While hunting in the outback for an aboriginal man accused of murdering a white woman, three soldiers and their aboriginal guide come across a tribal meeting. The leader of the soldiers, identified in the credits only as The Fanatic (Gary Sweet) brutally takes charge, goading a younger man, The Follower (Damon Gameau) into harassing and humiliating the aboriginals, demanding information about the fugitive. The scene quickly escalates into a massacre, but just as the violence is imminent, de Heer abruptly cuts away to a primitive painting of the ensuing mayhem. It's a jarring effect, and the cynical impulse is to assume that, with limited means, de Heer lacked confidence in his ability to portray the violence in a realistic and emotionally powerful way. But as de Heer returns to this technique throughout the film, it becomes oddly effective. The primal nature of the paintings themselves gives the film a kind of instant, contemplative historicity that nicely counters the somewhat overemphatic nature of the story and some of the performances. De Heer's use of long musical passages is less successful, and hinders his film's already lugubrious narrative flow. While the acting is uneven, David Gulpilil, in the title role, delivers a rich and forceful performance. The danger in presenting all of the characters as archetypes, which de Heer has done here, is that we may lose the human interest of the story, but Gulpilil subtly finds an emotional truth to the character and holds us rapt. His performance goes a long way toward rescuing the film from didacticism. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide