arfdawg-1
The Plot Jedda is an Aboriginal girl born on a cattle station in the Northern Territory of Australia. After her mother dies giving birth to her, the child is brought to Sarah McMann, the wife of the station boss. Sarah has recently lost her own newborn to illness. She at first intends to give the baby to one of the Aboriginal women who work on the station, but then raises Jedda as her own, teaching her European ways and separating her from other Aborigines.Jedda wants to learn about her own culture, but is forbidden by Sarah. When Jedda grows into a young woman, she becomes curious about an Aboriginal man from the bush named Marbuck. And it goes on from there.It's a dated movie and maybe if you are Australian you'd love it. For the rest of us it's a bit of a bore. But the color sure is sweet. Another reviewer said the negative made it to England but most of the film was destroyed in developing in England. This is untrue.The last roll of negative was destroyed in a plane crash on its way for developing in England. Chauvel re-shot these lost scenes at Kanangra Walls in the Blue Mountains and Jenolan Caves west of Sydney Cave Scenes were Filmed in the River Cave, Diamond Cave, Imperial Cave, and Mud Tunnels at Jenolan. Editing and sound recorded were completed in London.
swami73
I thought so. Some of the film's footage shot in the high mountains towards the conclusion of the movie is very familiar to me as The Blue Mountains of N.S.W. Australia. The mountains of the Northern Territory are so very different and they haven't as much darkness in their color. I thought that was obvious. However without being a spoiler, I think what the poster who said it was shot entirely on location meant was that it was shot entirely on location here in Australia. Which is something to be proud of given the other comments made about how rare film was in Australia during the time of its release in 1955. For a film in and about Australia and her people to be shot in Gevacolour(not Technicolor)is a wonderful compliment.
Seth_says
After reading a previous comment on the film while researching information for an essay, I was edging to make a correction. Here it is:Because Jedda was the first colour film to be produced in Australia, the printing technology had not actually yet reached our shores, so all the colour film reels had to be sent to England to be developed. While to reels reached England quite safely they were unfortunately damaged on their return and almost all the footage was lost. Charles Chauvel lacked the extra budget to go back out onto location, and found it much cheaper to bring all the cast to him. Thus most of the film had to be reshot in the Blue Mountains, between Sydney and Canbera, instead of on the original location.
bamptonj
An aboriginal cook from a Northern Territory cattle station dies giving birth. The child is subsequently adopted by the proprietors - the McManns' - who have just lost their own daughter. The child is named 'Jedda', meaning 'little wild goose' and she is raised (as best Sarah can, yet against the pleaful wishes of her husband and coworkers) as a white girl ("bringing her closer to our way of life"), not knowing her own language or culture. Having learnt the piano, her A.B.C. and generally being taught how to behave a proper Australian woman, the polite girl soon comes to be greatly adored by all on the ranch. Yet come rainy season, when all her aboriginal friends 'head bush', Jedda regrets not being able to go with them.Temporarily becoming a station-hand at the McManns' Station is Marbuck - a nomadic, fringe-dwelling Aborigine - whom Jedda is strangely drawn to. His tribe still observes the traditional customs of the Dreamtime as they were at the time of White Settlement. To Jedda, Marbuck is a true and absolute representation of the culture that has, because of her upbringing, always been denied and outrightly repressed (both by her 'parents' and subconsciously, herself). However, when she is unexpectedly abducted by him, she is somewhat abhorred by the experience. When Marbuck brings his new bride before his tribal elders, he is non-too-politely asked to leave his 'white' wife. The two head off into the bush; Jedda uncertain what her fate will be and Marbuck undecided what action he will take.While the topical issue of the Stolen Generation may come to mind, this film is, I believe, in no way a comprehensive piece of propaganda in favor of such a process; in fact the message the film seems to give is a mixed one. At the start of the movie, Sarah's husband recognizes and extols the pride the local Aborigines have in their culture and respects them for retaining their ancestral links (though perhaps for material reasons) - "they go out on their walkabout and come back better stock-men for it." He pleads to Sarah not to try "turning that wild, little magpie into a tame canary. Her roots are deep, they don't tame, only on the outside...it takes a thousand years to 'tame' it, you're trying in one life". Sarah, however, insists in almost a missionary tone that adopting Jedda is the only action they can take if they are to bring "them" closer to the 'Australian' way of life: "that's the old cry isn't it...you think they like to sleep with their dogs and their flies?"Made in 1955, of course, it does not try to counteract the attitude at the time that most Aborigines were fringe-dwellers and subservient to White Australia, though the film does not go out of its way to illustrate it either. Nevertheless, all the aborigines we see either exist as hired-hands especially dependent on the station's hospitality or can be categorized under the "gone bush", tribal stereotype that most Australians at the time subscribed to. Perhaps to cater for this expectation of a 1950's audience, the film makers have chosen to select unusually black Aboriginal actors. Even if not done on purpose, the cast of extras, filmed under garish-pastel Technicolor, look almost like they have been covered in Vaseline. If not for the desert scenes, an international audience may have thought they were seeing the clichéd charcoal Islanders of early Hollywood cannibal films, rather than the browner ingenious inhabitants we know today. They all address whites as "boss" and "missus".This film is greatly entertaining and heartbreaking, epic in its scope and is genuinely well-made, though the local utilization of the color format (the first film in Australia to do so) may make you chuckle. There are some very tense moments in the film as well as some beautifully shot scenes of the outback, and this movie was totally made on location. JEDDA is, we are told, a true story.
