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One of my all time favorites.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Sometimes all you need is magic. At least it seems so, when you see the real thing. If you happened to see Baz Luhmann's "Australia" and was confused, see this instead. It is the genuine article, about the magic, told with magic. It is circular, nested and webbed. It floats, and if you let it you will nearly be lost.The cinematography here — all the cinematic values — are only slightly apparent and when they declare themselves, it is in the service of the story: switching from subdued color to bright to signal the shift of what story you are in. Otherwise, the camera is either in conventional documentary mode or in space following spirits across landscapes as they voyage from waterhole python ouroboros and back.What we have here is good old oral storytelling supplemented by image, and highly structured. Essentially everything is told by an offscreen aboriginal narrator, whose convoluted beginning establishes all sorts of narrative pockets that are revisited later. The story is a tree, we are told and in its telling we visit many branches. There is a sort of beginning, but it is nearly too complicated to describe. There is an ending, but no. After a chuckle the narrator tells us he has no idea how it ends.Ostensibly, the story is told by the off-screen narrator, of a hunting party of aboriginal men, who make ten bark canoes and go hunting and gathering in the swamp. Over that period in the story, a wise man tells a story to his impatient much younger brother. That "inner" story shifts to color. It is supposed to be in a time in between creation and the full solidifying of men on earth. So the characters in the inner story are played by the folks in the outer one, and the main threads are folded together: a matter of the young man's desire for the older brother's youngest wife.But that is the merest of threads. We are told that the story is a tree. We literally see that tree shorn of bark and made into simple canoes. We literally see our hunters — in both stories — camping in trees. The story seems to ramble. There is sorcery, mystery, charmed turds. There is revenge, jokes, anthropology. Its all of a context. A point of all this is that there cannot be a point in the western sense. There isn't a linear narrative here with a message. There is a walkabout through a storyspace.The very first event we see tells us this in a remarkable way. Our ten men are walking single file and the last man halts the party. He refuses to be last, he says, because someone is farting. The line is consequently reshuffled. It is a gentle device, one that sets the magic for what "follows," a non-linear shuffle.The joke at the end has the same form. The last one (the youngest wife) is not how the thing ends.The entire production, we are told, uses aboriginal talent exclusively. You want to know the narrative power of carefully folded (meaning here: intuitively structured) narrative? See this.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Rolf De Heer is hands down the best filmmaker in Australia. I hope he never has to struggle for financing. Each film he makes is unique and yet the only thing that unites them is his originality and intellectual depth. The Tracker, Alexandra's Project, Bad Boy Bubby, The Old Man who Read Love Stories; these are some of the best films this country has ever produced and he does it here again with Ten Canoes.In the 1930's, Dr Donald Thompson, an anthropologist, lived and worked with the Yolngu people of Arnhem Land in an effort to bridge cultural divisions. He took some four thousand plate glass photographs which encapsulated the lives and culture of the people. These extraordinary photographs were introduced to Rolf de Heer by his good friend and collaborator, actor David Gulpilil. (The Tracker, Storm Boy). It was the image of ten canoeists hunting for goose eggs in a swamp which inspired de Heer, and provides the setting for the black and white section of the film which stars David's son, Jamie. The film is said to mirror the photographs very closely. The other, more dramatic tale occurs in mythical time and is shot in glorious stark colors with roving Steadicams.The entire film is in the Yolngu language, save David's brief voice-over, though a Yolngu language version with no subtitles also exists. This film is without white people and convention, and is all the better for it. It tears apart barriers and utilizes story telling devices in a fresh style. I felt as though I was witnessing a new form of technique, a new language of cinema, (unlike Baz Booringhams overblown toss, Australia).It is a beautiful story, rich in drama, humor and culture. The photography of Ian Jones, de Heer's frequent associate, is magnificent. Watching the lush green aerials on the big screen, juxtaposed with quiet meanderings through swamps with thick, dark canopy's is truly awe-inspiring. I hope you are able to watch it on a big wide screen; in the cinema it was exquisite.This was a cinematic experience rarely felt, a freshness of approach with a master filmmaker in command, and yet this is also the Yolngu people's film. De Heer shares directing credit with Peter Djigirr which demonstrates the level of collaboration involved. For example, there was no such thing as casting. There are people living in the region who are descended from those in the Thompson photographs, therefore, they had the right to portray their ancestors. There were many other cultural considerations that shaped the entire story and made this the most unique Australian film ever made. It certainly feels like it. I knew I was watching something very special indeed. It deserved its A.F.I. (Australian Film Institute) win for Best Film.It's hard to pick a highlight, but Richard Birrinbirrin's honey addiction is hilarious. I felt proud as an Australian that somebody had actually bothered to connect with the indigenous people of this land and discover the rich resource of their culture which is still mainly foreign to us Balanda today. I cried also, for that very same reason.Any way you look at it, from a technical point of view, to its originality and stunning imagery, to a piece of celluloid as a cultural experience, Ten Canoes is truly remarkable.

This film was absolutely mesmerizing! Gulpilil's first bizarre laugh shocked me. It was so alien! Strange! Uncontrolled! It made me look around, to see how the other people I was watching with had reacted. I didn't know how to react myself, to a laugh that was so fearless and unreserved.Those were the qualities that I appreciated most about this film. The story was told with no softening; no regard for how strange it may or may not seem to people outside their world. For once a film didn't blur the edges or offer any excuse for the way of life of the people on the screen which was so different from our homogenized experience. The film said, "they are what they are. This is the way they live. This is their story." And it was marvelous.This story was told with perfect directness, but fabulous imagination. The shots of various possible scenarios being played out took me right into the world of the characters listening to the story. Yes, these scenarios, and the changing between colour and black and white, exposed the movie for what it was - a movie - but they took me back, in my mind, to a truly innocent time, when my mum could tell me a story and the scenarios played out so clearly in my head that I really did believe there was an ankle grabber under the bed. The storytelling really was captivating in its simplicity. What a magnificent film.

Ten Canoes (2006), directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr, is the first movie I've seen that portrays only Australian Aboriginals. Movies like "Walkabout" and "The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith" portray the clash of cultures between European Australians and Aboriginal Australians. However, "Ten Canoes" is different. The entire story is about Aboriginals, and no non-Aboriginals intrude.The film is set in pre-colonization Australia, with flashbacks to a far earlier time. The basic plot--the love of a younger brother for his older brother's wife--is not unique. What is unique about this film is the manner in which the plot unfolds, and the glimpse it gives us into (presumably authentic) Australian Aboriginal culture.The film is definitely worth seeing, and will probably work well on DVD if it's not playing at a theater close to you. Incidentally, the narrator of "Ten Canoes" is David Gulpilil, who, in 1971, starred as "the Black boy" in "Walkabout."