A FORMER arts editor at a local newspaper once gently took me to task about describing a male actor as “beautiful” – okay for girls, but not for blokes! She’s long since gone, but her admonition hasn’t. And I’m unabashed about defying it when reviewing Molly Reynolds’ documentary about David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu. 

“Beautiful” has many possible labels. In David Gulpilil’s case, the choice is easy. And simple. David is a beautiful human being, whether viewed from the outside or by his presence on film telling his story. Grog and tobacco have shortened his life to the point where it is likely that we may soon hear about his death from lung cancer, diagnosed in 2017.

The film doesn’t harp on about this. He knows it’s coming and is stoic about it.

David belongs to the only race and community of people occupying Australia’s land mass at that time. His life has followed two paths. The film gives about equal time to both. We know Gulpilil the actor in 21 feature movies and 12 TV series, some good, others less so. Watching clips showing him in his own movie made me wonder what was going on in his head in some of the roles. Scary. The other path tells about how he coped with living in two communities still under a kind of truce. Discomforting.

He’s a versatile performer in a range of styles. A comedy routine showing him making a phone call to Ernie Dingo is wonderfully clever, funny and a tad scathing – what kind of relationship does the pair have in private, I wonder. It contrasts powerfully with the film’s opening sequence – David walking along a bush road following an emu which follows him when he turns and walks back toward the camera. And for sheer delight, his story about dinner with the Queen is a tribute to the “sangfroid” of them both.

We shall not see his like again. Or, shall we?