deborah mailman; miranda tipping; jessica mauboy; shari sebbens.
I finally saw The Sapphires last night with moniquemallo, it’s been in cinemas in Australia for over two months. I’m pretty bad at getting around to seeing movies but I’m really glad I made the time to see this one before its run was over.
as you should know by now, it’s about an all-Australian-Aboriginal girl group who made a tour of Vietnam during the war as part of the US troop entertainment programs. It’s an adaptation of a play written by Aboriginal playwright Tony Briggs, who wrote the story based on the real life Sapphires, his mother and aunts. (director Wayne Blair is also Aboriginal.)
the thing I didn’t realise going in is that it’s about Yorta Yorta women who grew up on Cummeragunja Station. that’s only a couple of hours out of Melbourne and it’s refreshing to see a film about the large Aboriginal population in the south-east of Australia. Lou Bennett (Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Warrung woman, Older Wiser Lesbian, accomplished musician, playwright, language reclamation scholar, kind and charming human) was one of the consultants, and I will check out pretty much anything she has touched. the parts of the film that deal with Yorta Yorta culture, history, and dispossession are very good.
it stars Deborah Mailman and Jessica Mauboy, who are extraordinary in everything I’ve seen them in, including this. newcomers Miranda Tipping and Shari Sebbens are also excellent. the musical numbers are great, I am particularly grumpy that Jessica Mauboy is not an international pop superstar.
it’s not perfect. a few plot threads I really wanted to know about were dropped. it’s not an anti-war movie, really, though two of the original Sapphires were staunchly anti-war, and the treatment of Vietnamese people in general is pretty thin. the main complaint most people I know would have is with the white “manager” character played by Chris O’Dowd, who is entitled, ridiculous, and pretty racist. the trailer (which is terrible) makes it look like the film is annoying but it’s more that he is annoying. you are supposed to be laughing at him, more than with him, but still grow to be attached to him, as the women do. I guess it’s better that he was written as a flawed character than as an unrealistically post-racial kinda guy, but he also fucks around a lot, compromises the women’s safety, possibly gambles away all their money (unclear), and never really does anything to make himself seem like a person you want in your life. fuck a larrikin. it’s also really annoying to me that reviews consistently single out Chris O’Dowd as “elevating” the film, or something like that. he was good, but I wouldn’t have said he was the standout actor; I’d give that gong to Mailman. Anyway, I’m keen to hear what other people thought of his character, especially women of colour, especially perhaps women of colour who’ve dated white dudes.
having said that, it’s a kind, funny, moving, film. I dunno, I basically only wanna watch rom-coms and science fiction, I have low-brow tastes like that. But I’m mad about descriptions of The Sapphires as “a sweet’n’dumb feelgood bopper” — wow, Henry Barnes of the Guardian! do you wanna be a little more condescending? It’s witty and entertaining and has a light touch on some heavy issues; it’s not dumb. christ. I fucking love rom-coms and it’s awesome to see one that is, for once, not about a bunch of cookie-cutter white American entrepreneurs. you should see it.
