The Sapphires (2012) and One Night the Moon (2001): Song, History and Australian Aboriginality

Abstract

The two Australian Indigenous film musicals, The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, 2012) and One Night the Moon (Rachel Perkins, 2001) concern themselves with the representation of Aboriginality and by using song, dance and music, address the painful aftermath of the Stolen Generations, colonial displacement and racism. Showing the genre’s typical testing of bonds of friendship and making use of the romantic subplot, The Sapphires brings the audience back to the utopian core at the heart of the genre. The historical lost child drama One Night the Moon, on the other hand, conceals the reconciling harmonies in the disharmonies of the music, the sadness in the lyrics and the polyphonous form and thus creates an awareness of the ‘unfinished business’ between Indigenous and white Australia. It is the female presence in both films that conveys the reconciling power; the women’s struggle towards cross-cultural understanding has introduced optimistic tones in the self-confidence of Australian Indigenous filmmaking.