peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 06 22 EmuRunner

Emu Runner (2018)

Wed, Jun 22, 2022./noise/movies | Link

On a DVD extracted from the Orange City library, watched over a couple of nights at the Temple Bar Caravan Park at Alice Springs. Despite the best intentions of writer/director Imogen Thomas it just isn't very good. The best parts are Brewarrina, gently and unoriginally photographed, and the emus. The acting and dialogue are not great, which didn't matter so much in Ivan Sen's Toomelah (filmed a bit further east at Mooree) as he was careful to tell a story within a community he was connected to rather than at the whitefella/blackfella interface. The themes are of grieving and loss, of growing up in a small town, of the saving graces of an extended family and being connected to land. Some of the redemptive parts seem unearned.