Worth: $15.50
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Cast:
William Onus
Intro:
… important …
With the modern proliferation and commoditization of cinema and film culture, it can be easy to take for granted just how radical the artform can be. Whether it’s the capturing of the real world through the all-seeing eye of the camera lens or telling stories that exist beyond the confines of the viewer’s world, film is important. With Ablaze, the debut documentary from Tiriki Onus (co-directed by Hunt Angels’ Alec Morgan), that importance is brought into the larger conversation involving Indigenous Australian history, and where the two cultures bravely intersected.
As all good documentaries should, its genesis comes from a deeply personal need to learn more. Armed with a suitcase full of photos, Tiriki sets out across Australia to discover the story of the man who took them: William Onus, Aboriginal impresario, civil rights activist, and Tiriki’s grandfather.
Through the honorable but never outwardly doting perspective of Tiriki, William Onus’s career is framed as that of an inspired man with ambition to burn and a pointed understanding of the power of art. Kindled by a cinematic appropriation of his people’s cultures, Onus decided that these stories deserved to be told by the people who lived them.
Cries of keeping politics out of art tend to come from those whose environment, culture, and indeed their art, is already catered for by the mainstream consciousness. But for those whose work is acted against by political forces, from ASIO’s secret surveillance of Onus’s overseas work (footage of which is also included, becoming a duel of the film cameras), to an invitation by Walt Disney himself that government forces blocked from being accepted, the mere act of portraying that art becomes an inherently political display.
Splicing together those old photos, interview footage with historians and those who knew Onus personally, and many a film reel taken of the stageplays, films, and TV appearances from the man himself, editor Tony Stevens elevates each artistic practice to a level of equal importance, highlighting art as a powerful force for change.
As is the act of its preservation, onto film reels and canisters and now digital stock. “Pics or it didn’t happen”, so goes the ancient Internet adage, and as Tiriki’s own understanding of his grandfather blossoms like a cloud of black mist, the importance of that discovery becomes much clearer. The proliferation of a culture, as shared through the universal medium of film, is a means by which it can be kept alive; a way of peering back at the numerous attempts at cultural erasure by White Australians, and showing them that they failed to snuff the fire out.
Ablaze is a celluloid tether to the Dreamtime, stretching out to a man who fought long and hard to keep the cultural traditions of his people alive; to ensure that his work is never forgotten. With a reel of cellulose acetate (and its digital equivalent), it is possible to change the world.
