AustLit

'Three police shows axed in just one year. For some observers, it seemed like much more than a coincidence, writes Jock Given'

'In Charlie’s Country, there’s a key moment that’s both gross and grotesque. David Gulpilil’s Charlie, confronting the admonitions of a police officer, ejects a set of false teeth and says, “I can’t eat with them, I can’t eat without them, I’m starving.” And indeed he looks it; lithe and active, but a fair bag of bones. Sometime, there’ll be a dentist visiting the community. With his mate Black Pete (Peter Djigirr, remembered from Ten Canoes) Charlie goes off shooting buffalo; they’re in search of real sustenance, relief from the junk food in the local store. The rifle, the carcass, and even the carefully crafted wooden spear are confiscated. Charlie’s funds in the ATM, casually disbursed around the place, run out. Relations with local police seem, at the outset, to be made of amiable ritual banter; but things will turn ugly.' (Introduction)