MOVIE REVIEW : ‘FRINGE DWELLERS’: ABORIGINAL LIFE

There’s a world of difference between taking a human life out of selfishness and out of a belief that you’re doing the victim a favor.

In his otherwise excellent, deeply involving film “The Fringe Dwellers” (at the Fine Arts), director Bruce Beresford doesn’t make it sufficiently clear that he’s leaving it up to us to decide for ourselves the motivation (which in this instance may also be complex and contradictory and very possibly partially subconscious) for a shocking, unexpected act that’s so easily passed off as an accident.

It’s a real jolter, not the kind of moment you normally reveal, even obliquely, in a review. It has to be mentioned, however, because it’s as unintentionally confusing--perhaps less so for Australian audiences--as it is deliberately and rightly unsettling, occurring in a film that up to this point has been in its style a straightforward traditional narrative. Ironically, in the larger view, the motivation may finally not matter, since hardship and defeat, death and destruction are so pervasive in the lives of Australia’s aborigines, who have been depicted here with such affection, humor and respect by Beresford in his (and his wife Rhoisin’s) adaptation of the Nene Gare novel. But in the shorter view, we’re left unsure as to how to feel about the perpetrator.

Pretty, teen-age Trilby (Kristina Nehm) is blessed--or is it cursed?--to be bright enough to see that her people are caught up in that same eternal cycle of poverty, apathy and discrimination that afflicts millions of America’s blacks. Living in a shanty town community on the edge of a sunny Queensland village, Trilby becomes determined that she and her family will have a better life. This means getting out a shack and into a real house in town, and for her, eventually getting out entirely and heading for the city.

Proud as she is vulnerable, Trilby is quick to respond with rage to the gestures of whites, well-meaning or bigoted. Trilby doesn’t ask us to like her, but how can we not? She’s not only clearly intelligent, but beneath her moodiness and critical nature, also very loving of her family, the Comeaways, who remind us of the Joads of “The Grapes of Wrath.” There’s her beautiful, soft-voiced mother (Justine Saunders), a force of sustenance yet a figure of innocence, her sturdy father (Bob Maza) who’s fed up with a life of back-breaking labor, her sweet older sister Noonah (Kylie Belling) who works in a hospital and is the family’s financial mainstay, and her lively little brother Bartie (Denis Walker). There’s also a raft of relatives who weigh down the family. Beresford and his splendid actors make it very easy to care about the Comeaways as they try to gain a precarious foothold in the middle class.

We want so much for Noonah to pass the exam that will qualify her as a nurse, we’re thrilled when a teacher encourages Bartie in his art work and, most of all, we’re caught up in the brightly burning dreams of Trilby as she presses her nose against the class of a travel agency with its blow-ups of enticing faraway places. (Beresford deftly makes the point that to Trilby, Sydney is as remote as London or Manhattan.) But Trilby rejects a handsome, likable young stock man (Ernie Dingo), who insists that, like her, he’s “different,” that perhaps all their people once were “different,” but “they got dragged down . . . they couldn’t fly away.”

Yet “The Fringe Dwellers,” which glows with cinematographer Don McAlpine’s clear-cut images, values those who are living hand to mouth for their ability to live life as it comes and for their warm survivors’ wit and compassion. Trilby may want to make it into a middle class that is inevitably white in its ways, but Beresford does not lose sight of the strong family bonds that have sustained the aboriginal culture, whose own ways and language are fast vanishing. Despite the problematic nature of its climactic sequence, “The Fringe Dwellers” (rated PG for mature themes) is an engaging, thought-provoking experience.

‘THE FRINGE DWELLERS’ An Atlantic release of a Virgin Films Limited production in association with Damien Nolan Productions and Ozfilm Limited. Exec. producer Hilary Heath. Producer Sue Milliken. Director Bruce Beresford. Screenplay Bruce and Rhoisin Beresford; from the novel by Nene Gare. Camera Don McAlpine. Music Geore Dreyfus. Production designer Herbert Pinter. Costumes Kerri Barnett. Film editor Tim Wellburn. With Kristina Nehm, Justine Saunders, Bob Maza, Kylie Belling, Denis Walker, Ernie Dingo, Malcolm Silva, Marlene Bell, Michelle Torres, Michele Miles, Kath Walker, Bill Sandy.

Running time: 1 hour, 38 minutes.

MPAA rating: PG (Parental guidance suggested; some material may not be suitable for children).