The Tracker

Rolf De Heer
Australia 2002
98 min

In 1922, the tracker has the job of tracking an Aboriginal suspected of murdering a white woman and leads a police office (the fanatic), his offsider (the follower) and a seconded assistant (the veteran) across the outback.

The journey descends into an acrimonious and murderous trek that shifts power from one man to another, challenged by the indigenous people they come across - as well as each other. (ENIAR)

Cast	David Gulpilil Gary Sweet Damon Gameau Grant Page Noel Wilton the tracker the fanatic the follower the veteran the fugitive
Release dates	August 8th, 2002 - Australia First shown in March on the 2002 Adelaide Festival of the Arts.
Video/DVD Release Date	not available
Awards	Best Feature Film (2002 Lexus IF Awards) Best actor (Yalumba IF Award) Best music (BMG IF Award) Best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best editing, best music, best cinematography (2002 Australian Film Critics Awards) Best film, best actor, best music score, best cinematography (2002 Film Critics Circle of Australia)
Rating	M - adult themes (violent scenes are replaced by a painting — an unusual yet effective approach)
Language level	medium
Distributor	Intramovies
Soundtrack	Graham Tardif The soundtrack features 10 original songs performed by Award-winning musician Archie Roach. CD released through Festival Mushroom Records on August 12.
Genre	Drama
Notes	Another great film by Heer is Ten Canoes (2006). The Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, keeps an extensive record on the movie's details along with a critical review of the film and its literature. An article of The Blurb reports that artist Peter Coad was commissioned to paint 14 landscape and figurative works for inclusion in the film, a first for an Australian film. The paintings are used ingeniously to display violence in the film, a method that works to both soften the impact of the actions, and also make them so much more powerful.

He tracked a guy... and told me he'd been carrying a torch and that it had happened at night time. I mean, how the hell could he have known that?... When we found the body at the bottom of a mine shaft - there it was with a torch.—Robert Primrose, retired superintendent, talking about Aboriginal tracker Jonny Grey [1]

Where to from here?

• Aboriginal people and their challenges
• Learn more about Aboriginal culture
• Law and Aboriginal people