
In a remote Aboriginal community, 10 year old Daniel yearns to be a gangster, like the male role models in his life. Skipping school, getting into fights and running drugs for Linden, who leads the main gang in town.... (Full plot summary below)
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In a remote Aboriginal community, 10 year old Daniel yearns to be a gangster, like the male role models in his life. Skipping school, getting into fights and running drugs for Linden, who leads the main gang in town.
Leave your thoughts about Toomelah.
| Matt's Movie ReviewsMatthew PejkovicRaw in its intimacy and heartbreaking in its clarity, Toomelah continues the strong showing from the new wave of indigenous cinema in Australia. |
| Eye for FilmAnton BitelSen does not flinch from showing a community plagued by misguided models of masculinity, but offsets this hopelessness with a qualified optimism for a different kind of cultural continuity. |
| Urban CinefileAndrew L. UrbanAn unflinching portrait of an Aboriginal boy's options in a small remote community |
| User ReviewChris BAbsolutely extraordinary film. There is no way to describe it -- the look and feel are so much more than the plot and description. Sen cast first time actors from the actual community of Toomelah and achieved something transcendent. |
| User ReviewScott FAs if a documentary has been made by a poet, the brilliant Ivan Sen finds the sublime in the bleakest of circumstances. Toomelah is an open wound, the palpable cultural loss compounded by the elusive snatches of transcendent beauty in the landscape and in the faces which reflect back the profound loss. |
| User ReviewGavin PMany layers, some inspiring, most bleak. Cautiously optimistic. |
| User ReviewMark Wa bit hard to take but certainly a good film |
| User ReviewJonathan BAn unrelentingly bleak personal tale of life on the Toomelah Aborigine mission (home to director Ivan Sen's mother), with a cast of non-actors and raw documentary style aesthetics (Sen self shot with a single DV camera using on board sound). There is a lot to admire in this film, Sen builds a compelling story (if a little too rough around the edges at times) and raises some difficult questions about life on the mission, but I can't help feeling that Sen's attempt at going for an almost dogme 95 level of naturalism hampers his attempts to emotionally engage his audience. |