Jedda

‘Jedda’, Charles Chauvel’s last feature film and Australia’s first in colour, is the story of a teenage Aboriginal girl who has been raised by a white woman, and finds herself drawn to Marbuck, a full-blooded Aborigine who comes to the station for work. The film falls readily into two halves. The first details Jedda’s upbringing and her emotional turmoil as to her identity, which is solved by Jedda herself, when the call of her blood leads her into the physical and psychological world of her people. The second half of the film, photographed in spectacular Central Australian locations, concentrates on the tension of the chase in which Marbuck and Jedda are pursued by the men from Jedda’s station. Cast includes Ngarla Kunoth as Jedda, Robert Tudawali as Marbuck, Betty Suttor, Paul Reynall, George Simpson-Lytle, Tas Fitzer, Wason Byers, Willie Farrar, Margaret Dingle. Also available on DVD [319218].