Review of Ten Canoes (2006) by Rainer G — 16 Apr 2010

Ten Canoes is one of the most unique films I have every seen. Its opening imagery is so raw and unaffected I was not expecting the comedic fantasia that Ten Canoes is. Ten Canoes is a film firmly based in the tradition of aboriginal oral storytelling.

Set a millennia ago in Australia, long before the arrival of white guys. It is about a time when oral stories were the predominate form of teaching, and knowledge was passed on by elders whose life experience was the basis of all fact.

What makes Ten Canoes so different is that it essentially takes familiar systems of fantasy film storytelling, and firmly roots them in reality. But what a foreign reality! In Ten Canoes an elder tribesman tells a story to a younger man over the course of a multi-day hunting trip.

The film alternates between the Elder and young man in beautiful black and white, and the color rendering of the story told. The fable he weaves is a fantasy epic with a moral punchline, told with a matter-of-fact directness.

It is a classic tale of love, deceit, mystery, humor, magic, and death, but in its context, it becomes something entirely new. I love films about stories, because stories are the driving force behind humanity and knowledge, as Ten Canoes shows us.

All culture is firmly rooted in the stories it tells, and Ten Canoes does the remarkable by immersing us in a world of new stories with ancient, yet still fresh, ideas. We have not changed much, at heart, and the story the Elder tells in Ten Canoes is not much different than The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Avatar, and equally if not more beautiful.

The cinematography alone makes Ten Canoes worth-it. I have never seen such a gorgeous capturing of Australia's countryside. I cannot say more, because the off-beat, subtly funny tone, and non-performances, must be experienced to be understood.

But it is a masterpiece, that much can be said.