It’s been a wonderful year for documentaries about Indigenous Australian artists, with Firestarter: Story of Bangarra charting the evolution of the magical Bangarra Dance Theatre and My Name is Gulpilil presenting a portrait, in the spirit of a living wake, of the great Yolŋu actor David Gulpilil.
Now comes director Larissa Behrendt’s Araatika: Rise Up! – which isn’t about artists per se but certainly about creative expression, poised at the intersection of art and sport, following a group of NRL players as they create the First Nations equivalent of a haka.
It’s not on the same level as the aforementioned productions (being a more modest and unprepossessing documentary, with fewer frills) but it’s nevertheless a warming and compelling watch, populated by likeable people pursuing a valuable endeavour. Splashes of visual bravado indicate a desire to create a more cinematically elevated work, which, while only partially realised, sprinkles the film with lovely images such as an opening drone shot of beautiful green terrain that lateralises the title, moving into the air and reaching towards the heavens.
We’re soon taken to moments of action on the footy oval intercut with vision of an Indigenous dancer in the mid air, in front of a surreal brown background: a tableau divorced from space and time. This reminded me of Laurence Billiet’s Cathy Freeman documentary, Freeman, which also embraces athleticism as a form of expression and is laced with visions of Bangarra performer Lillian Banks playing “the spirit of Cathy”– attempting to channel via interpretative dance the emotional journey of the superstar sprinter.
In Araatika we meet Dean Widders, former footballer and now Indigenous pathways manager for the NRL, who notes that he’s “seen from an early age what rugby league can do for an Aboriginal community”, with its emphasis on teamwork and sticking up for each other. Widders says watching the New Zealand team perform their haka, and observing the pride with which they do so, “always niggled at me”, given the Australia team had no such equivalent.
He sets out on a mission to fill this void, consulting various parties for advice and at one point sitting down with Wesley Enoch, artistic director of Sydney festival, who compares watching sport and experiencing art as similar in the sense that both evoke in observers the feeling of “that’s part of me up there – you’re representing me and my culture”. He then delivers a proposition: “Get a mob together and come and dance,” and “Let’s make sure the rest of the world sees.” He gives Widders a platform at the Sydney festival for a performance, and by doing so, also gives the film-maker a tournament movie-esque trajectory, whereby the subjects work and train for a big third-act finale.