The Tracker

The year is 1922. Somewhere in the deserted mountains of Australia a four-man group is chasing an Aborigine accused of murdering a white woman. The group’s leader is a policeman (out of uniform), a hateful racist fanatic. He’s accompanied by a younger fellow policeman and an old veteran hired just for the occasion. To hunt down the killer these white men have taken along an Aborigine tracker. He leads them through the wilderness, concealing his far-reaching experience under a mask of obligatory servility. The superficial calm ends when, for no reason, the white riders slaughter a family of camping Aborigines. From then on they are enemies in the mountains and must face ever-present danger. Rolf de Heer develops a traditional western scheme with a sense of individual situations and an accent on slow pacing; these he combines with surprising twists to a simple story. He also attempts to extend the application of the film beyond the specific incident (the characters therefore don’t have names). The film is made even more singular by the use of Peter Coad’s paintings to replace scenes of violence. Graham Tardiff’s songs add another unusual touch: sung by Aborigine singer Archie Road, the director wrote the texts himself as a commentary on the plot.