10 Canoes

10 Canoes is a movie about an Aboriginal Australian people, the Ganalbingu. The narrator speaks English, but dialogue is in the Ganalbingu language. The plot of the film is a narrative within a narrative: a group of Aboriginal hunters embark on a goose egg gathering trip, on which an older member of the group tells the youngest member of the group a story about a man whose wife disappears and the mayhem that results. It's supposedly a comedy, but the ending is very sad. The scenery and camera work are lovely, and the language, facial expressions and body language of the actors are like nothing I've ever seen or heard before.

RATING: 91%

(Image from charlottefilmsociety.org.)