The Fringe Dwellers

The Fringe Dwellers, reportedly, is a movie that Aussie director Bruce Beresford has wanted to make for a long time, ever since reading the 1961 novel by Australian author Nene Gare. He had to wait for years, but having since conquered Hollywood – or, at least, having made a name for himself – with Tender Mercies and Crimes of the Heart, Beresford could pack his clout under his arm and return to Australia to get the job done.

That The Fringe Dwellers was a tough sell is not surprising. It’s about the shapeless lives of aborigines living on society’s fringes, figuratively and literally. In particular, it’s about one extended family attempting to move up a notch in the social ladder, seen through the eyes of the teen-age daughter who is the prime instigator of the upward mobility.

This girl, played in an impressive debut by Kristina Nehm, is ambitious and caustic. There’s a wonderful shot of her standing at twilight, looking wanly at the prefabricated suburban house that might be hers, if only her family would rouse themselves into it. The family’s move from their fringe shack to this new home is the main narrative thread, upon which incidents from the lives of these people are played out.

This rambling story structure – a bit like the ramshackle homes in which the aborigines live – allows for some flavorful episodes. The girl’s early, almost offhand romance; the father’s disastrous gambling with the rent money (the latter an unfamiliar concept); the occasional foray into otherworldliness by one of the older, tribal aborigines; the mother’s visit for afternoon tea at her white neighbor’s house, where she eats all the scones (“Because they were there”) and keeps the cloth napkin the hostess hands her.

It’s all reasonably well-formed, but Beresford doesn’t quite find the key to making the film very compelling. He clearly identifies with these characters, possibly because he makes movies with the same kind of shrugging, no-­sweat amiability with which they lead their lives. This combination, however, makes for some pretty listless storytelling.

And, as charming as much of the film is, there are whiffs of condescension when it comes to the portrayal of the simple-but-happy aborigines. The mother (Justine Saunders) complains, “All this education just makes you want things.” Sometimes the movie seems allied with her view, while the proud, angry daughter comes off as unsympathetic. Maybe Beresford meant to be ambiguous; but the movie isn’t strong or sharp enough to support both points of view.

First published in The Herald, March 7, 1987

Reading this now, having not seen the film since ’87, I worry that the condescending whiffs might seem more glaring today. There’s a note in the Wikipedia page for this film that says Aboriginal activists walked out on the screening at Cannes, but without details. It was shot by Donald McAlpine, yet another talented Aussie DP. Despite my opening paragraph, this film was actually made before Crimes of the Heart.