AustLit

'Australia's cultural and political life is dominated by the image of the boat, most recently in the form of border anxiety concerning asylum seekers arriving by boat from the north. In this context, it is surprising to note the cinematic refrain of a literal absence of boats in Asian Australian ‘boat stories’ on screen, by which the visual iconography of the boat (as a physical object) is disavowed at the same time as it is underscored and over-exploited in the service of a certain kind of politicized cinema...'