THE TRACKER
Fanatic is a government trooper who is heading an expedition to find an Aboriginal man accused of murdering a white woman. Others in the expedition are the Follower, a greenhorn trooper, the Veteran, and the Tracker.
Think of an Anthony Mann Western made by an experimental film director, and you get an indication of the challenging components of this film. The story of a manhunt that is politically sensitive because of its depiction of atrocities perpetrated on aboriginals by a fanatical white cop.
On the surface, this is a pared-down, muscular outdoor drama set in 1922 ‘somewhere in Australia,’ in which an aboriginal tracker (Gulpilil), on foot, leads two mounted policemen and a civilian on the track of a black fugitive. A haunting and uniquely Australian western.