Ten Canoes (2006)
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 62
Fresh: 61 | Rotten: 1
Ten Canoes combines adventure, comedy, and anthropology to explore an Aborigine folk tale both fallibly human and legendary. Helmer Rolf de Heer depicts a barely represented oral tradition with a clean style.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 23
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 0
Ten Canoes combines adventure, comedy, and anthropology to explore an Aborigine folk tale both fallibly human and legendary. Helmer Rolf de Heer depicts a barely represented oral tradition with a clean style.
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Average Rating: 3.7/5
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Movie Info
A man teaches his younger brother an important lesson through an ancient fable in this period comedy drama shot in Australia, and the first feature film made in the Aboriginal language of Ganalbingu. As narrator David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu sets up the story, we watch a group of tribesmen led by elder Minygululu (Peter Minygululu) set out on an expedition to gather bark for canoe building and collect the precious eggs of the magpie geese. It has become clear to Minygululu that his
Cast
-
Crusoe Kurddal
Ridjimiraril -
Jamie Dayindi Gulpilil Da...
Dayindi/Yeeralparil -
-
Richard Birrinbirrin
Birrinbirrin -
Peter Minygululu
Minygululu -
Frances Djulibing
Nowalingu -
Sonia Djarrabarlminym
Banalandju -
Cassandra Malangarri Bake...
Munandjarra -
Philip Gudthaykudthay
The Sorcerer -
David Gulpilil
The Storyteller
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Ten Canoes Trailer & Photos
All Critics (65) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (64) | Rotten (1) | DVD (9)
Sometimes all it takes to bridge the chasm of eons is a little humor.
Top CriticGulpilil is the canny, subtle and funny narrator of 10 Canoes, a film of unutterable beauty, hypnotic fascination and universal humanity.
Parts of that narrative are surprisingly frank and irreverent.
It's worth putting up with the meandering story to see the aboriginal world shown from a fresh perspective.
Audacious and impressive, but challenging work, requiring steadfast concentration.
Australian writer-director Rolf de Heer is an extremely visual filmmaker, and his images stay with you. Ten Canoes' authenticity is guaranteed by a close collaboration with the Aboriginal community.
A unique and entertaining blend of anthropology and cinema.
The fable is a fascinating ethnographic document that satisfies just like any well told story.
Really a fairly amazing achievement: an engrossing, witty cultural document that doesn't feel staid in the least. All this, plus spear fights.
It's rare when a making-of featurette spills the beans on a production's mishaps and hurdles.
Provided you're not Puritanical about frontal nudity, this powerful picture based on a myth is otherwise a delight, and a cinematic preservation of a so-called primitive people's oral tradition.
A study of community and ritual, Ten Canoes celebrates as it contemplates, emphasizing the fact that this collection of stories, Gulpilil's story in its many layers, is seen.
As much an anthropology exercise as a cinematic experience, the Australian Ten Canoes goes back nearly a millennium to immerse us in the lives of the Aborigines who survived on the land centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
A new and different kind of cinematic mythmaking.
... a top-flight example of cinematic storytelling ...
Ten Canoes is a celebration of the art of storytelling, and of the power of stories to transcend all barriers of space, time and language. This is a movie with sheer magic in it.
Audience Reviews for Ten Canoes
Super Reviewer
[font=Century Gothic]"Two Canoes" is a beautiful exploration of the oral tradition of storytelling in Aboriginal culture.(The film is alternately shot in bleached out colors.) This is how information is related from one generation to the next. For example, Minygululu is not only teaching his younger brother about how to hunt in the swamps but also to be patient and never to do anything rash. In other words, all he has to do is wait and he will get what he wants. Remember in this society, everything is as it has been for thousands of years and will be the same for years to come. Nothing is going anywhere. And if all of that sounds very dry, do not worry. There is enough irreverence to go around for everyone.[/font]
Super Reviewer
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Foreign Titles
- 10 Kanus, 150 Speere und 3 Frauen (DE)
- 10 canoës, 150 lances et 3 épouses (FR)
