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Radiance tells the story of three women who reunite, after many years apart, for their mother's funeral.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Fabulous Finds
2016
single work
column
— Appears in: AIATSIS News , May no. 19 2016; 'AIATSIS holds a collection of material from the film, including some of the props, and delightfully that includes the cowboy boots worn by Deborah Mailman in the film. ...' -
y
Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema : Poetics and Screen Geographies
London
:
Anthem Press
,
2016
11063066
2016
multi chapter work
criticism
'‘Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema’ comprises eight essays, an introduction and conclusion, and the analysis of poetics and cultural geographies is focused on landmark films and television. The first section of the book, ‘Backtracks: Landscape and Identity’, refers to films from and before the revival, beginning with the 1978 film 'The Irishman' as an example of heritage cinema in which performances of gender and race, like the setting, suggest a romanticised and uncritical image of colonial Australia. It is compared to Baz Luhrmann’s 'Australia' (2008) and several other films. In the second chapter, ‘Heritage Enigmatic’, 'The Irishman' is also drawn into comparison with Charles Chauvel’s ‘Jedda’ (1955), as films that incorporate Indigenous performances in this heritage discourse through the role of voice and sound. In Part 2, ‘Silences in Paradise’, the first essay, ‘Tropical Gothic’, focuses on Rachel Perkins’s 'Radiance' (1998) as a landmark post-colonial film that questions the connotations of icons of paradise in Queensland. The discussion leads to films, in the next chapter, ‘Island Girls Friday’, that figure women on Queensland islands, spanning the pre-revival and contemporary era: ‘Age of Consent’ (1969), ‘Nim’s Island’ (2008) and ‘Uninhabited’ (2010). Part 3, ‘Masculine Dramas of the Coast’ moves to the Gold Coast, in films dating from before and since the current spike in transnational production at the Warner Roadshow film studios there, namely, 'The Coolangatta Gold' (1984), 'Peter Pan' (2003), and 'Sanctum' (2011). The final section, ‘Regional Backtracks’, turns, first, to two television series, ‘Remote Area Nurse’ (2006), and ‘The Straits’ (2012), that share unique provenance of production in the Torres Strait and far north regions of Queensland, while, in the final chapter, the iconic outback districts of western Queensland figure the convergence of land, landscape and location in films with potent perspectives on Indigenous histories in ‘The Proposition’ (2005) and ‘Mystery Road’ (2013). ‘Finding Queensland in Australian Cinema’ presents the various regions as syncretic spaces subject to transitions of social and industry practices over time.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
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Trio Taking to Belvoir Stage for Radiance
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Koori Mail , 28 January no. 593 2015; (p. 22) -
Seriously Funny : History and Humour in The Sapphires and Other Indigenous Comedies
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , July no. 63 2012; 'The Sapphires (Wayne Blair, 2012) opens in an idyllic rural setting. A group of young Aboriginal girls run home across the paddocks in the fading evening light to sing for a gathering of family and friends. But this benign atmosphere rapidly switches to terror as white Australian Government officials arrive on the scene and forcibly remove one of the girls from the Cummeraganja Mission community. It is the late 1960s, and State and Federal Government "child protection" policies allow the removal of so-called "half-caste" Aboriginal children from their families, leaving a devastating and traumatic legacy that the film goes on to address.' (Author's introduction)
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Reconciliation and the History Wars in Australian Cinema
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Exhuming Passions : The Pressure of the Past in Ireland and Australia 2012; (p. 207-222) 'When The Proposition ( a UK/Australia co-production, directed by John Hillcoat and scripted by Nick Cave) was released in 2005, film reviewers had no qualms about claiming this spectacular saga of colonial violence on the Queensland frontier as a 'history' film. A reviewer on BBC Radio 4 described The Proposition as 'a bushranger Western...set in violent 1880s Australian outback exposing the bitter racial tensions between English and Irish settlers. A Sunday Times review declared that 'Australia's brutal post-colonial history is stripped of all the lies in a bloody clash of cultures between the British police, the Irish bushrangers and the Aborigines.' Foregrounding the film's revisionist spectacle of colonial violence, an Australian reviewer predicted that, despite 'scenes of throat-cutting torture, rape and exploding heads...The Proposition could be the most accurate look at our national history yet'. (Author's introduction, 207)
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Cross-Cultural Alliances : Exploring Aboriginal Asian Literary and Cultural Production
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Lost in the Whitewash : Aboriginal-Asian Encounters in Australia, 1901-2001 2003; (p. 143-162) Peta Stephenson surveys Aboriginal-Asian cross-cultural production, considering representations of Aboriginal-Asian relations, influences on the construction of contemporary Aboriginality, and Aboriginal perceptions of Asian identity. -
Arresting Metaphors : Anti-Colonial Females in Australian Cinema
2005
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Text , vol. 1 no. 2 2005; 'This paper attempts to advance new understandings of female cinematic agency by interrogating its connection to patterns of cultural colonialism in Australian film. The visual presence of female Aboriginality in contemporary Australian film undermines, in subtle and explicit ways, the possibility of a truly secure white identity tied to the Australian environment. It does so through the introduction of the complexities of Aboriginal difference, through the subversion of white cinematic narratives and mythologies, and through physical agency and action. In this way, the anti-colonial impulse in the cinema emerges, in films which effectively 'unearth' the continuing cinematic metaphors of colonial power. -- From the journal. -
Rachel Perkins
2007
single work
non-fiction
— Appears in: Dreaming in Motion : Celebrating Australia's Indigenous Filmmakers 2007; (p. 51-53) Contains Rachel Perkin's short film biography, her filmography, details on the film: Radiance and One Night the Moon, and a small commentary by Perkins on filmmaking. -
Tropical Gothic : 'Radiance' Revisited
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Etropic : Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics , vol. 7 no. 2008; 'This essay does not attempt to investigate, much less solve the mystery [of where this narrative is set], but instead deepens it by considering aspects of location, setting and narration in the film, which was co-scripted by Perkins and Nowra, as well as the process of transposition from play to film.' -
Coming from the City in the Castle, Vacant Possession, Strange Planet and Radiance
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Cinema after Mabo 2004; (p. 112-130) In this chapter, Collins and Davis analyse how emergent themes within contemporary Australian cultural studies, repudiate 'the 19th century bush as the template for a British-derived national identity, turning instead to the cosmopolitan city , the multi-cultural suburbs, and the hedonistic holiday coast as templates for the a dynamic, post-national, post-multi-cultural identity in the 21st century.' The authors argue that 'the problem of belonging and of being at home in Australia is evident in the afterwardness of the history wars that followed the Mabo decision.' Source : Australian Cinema after Mabo (2004).
- Far North Queensland, Queensland,
