Gurrumul (PG). Director: Paul Damien Williams. Starring: Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu. 97 minutes
At the time of his death in July last year, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was the most commercially successful Aboriginal Australian musician to ever grace this world. Anyone expecting Gurrumul — the film about Gurrumul's career, on which he signed off prior to his death at 46 — to resemble anything like your typical popular music documentary will be quickly dissuaded. After all Gurrumul was a far cry from your typical popular musician.
The film's opening sees the former Yothu Yindi and Saltwater Band fringe-player Gurrumul sitting mum, as a radio interviewer rattles off the most predictable of questions (how does his blindness enhance his musical abilities?). Inevitably, longtime friend Michael Hohnen, co-manager of Gurrumul's Skinnyfish label, steps in. Throughout Gurrumul's career, Michael's is often the voice that connects his art to the crasser requirements of a commercial career.
When it comes to publicity Gurrumul is reticent, but when he sings he is limitless. The film transitions to the studio where we hear his vocals isolated from instrumental tracks, his raw technical ability exalted alongside a depth of soul that, as one family member notes, taps deeply into the songlines of his people. The multi-instrumentalist Gurrumul sings in language, in a form that connects his traditional culture to a mainstream, global audience.
This building of bridges between Aboriginal and white Australia, and between an ancient local culture that exalts family and tradition and a contemporary global one where fame and commercial success are hallmarks of worth, is a recurrent, fraught theme. It's laid bare in an excruciating sequence where Gurrumul is co-opted to perform on a French TV program with Sting a cover, in language, of Sting's hit ‘Every Breath You Take'. Gurrumul has no idea who Sting is.
We see it, too, in the disaster of Gurrumul's first mooted tour of the US. On the eve of the tour, Gurrumul is a no-show at Darwin airport, having stayed behind in his Elcho Island community on family business. The next day, Michael mans the phone to US promoters, trying to explain why the star attraction has bailed. Even the sympathetic Michael has to admit that after this, he can never book Gurrumul for a major international tour again.
This is a salient moment for Michael and for his Skinnyfish accomplice Mark Grose. Both these white men are palpably humiliated and disappointed by the turn of events. But they are aware enough to wonder if their responses are a reflection of their taking their relationship with Gurrumul for granted. Weighing the personal relationship against western conceptions of professional obligation, Mark affirms that the relationship must come up trumps every time.
"Here we see the ultimate merging of Aboriginal themes and music with the epitome of white European musical styles. It is spine-tingling stuff."
Years later, they continue to work with Gurrumul professionally. More significantly, they are present at the funerals of Gurrumul's parents. The film's fly-on-the-wall perspective shifts between Gurrumul's life as a professional musician — say, his typically taciturn appearance on the red carpet at the ARIAs — and the traditional life of the community to which he is inextricably connected. In so doing it constantly asks: Which is the more authentic?
The moment that most perfectly captures both the possibility and difficulty of these two cultures achieving synergy — through mutual listening — comes in the final act. During the recording of Gurrumul's fourth and final studio album, Djarimirri (Child of the Rainbow), we witness the inimitable sound of the didgeridoo being adapted and annotated for classical orchestral instruments; a task as formidable for the arranger as it is for the performers.
Here we see the ultimate merging of Aboriginal themes and music with the epitome of white European musical styles. It is spine-tingling stuff, of which Gurrumul's voice and songwriting, with their ancient roots, are the stars. Gurrumul would die before the album was released, but not before the songs were heard live by audiences at the Sydney Opera House. The gift of Gurrumul's commercial output is that we can hear those songs, still.
Tim Kroenert is the editor of Eureka Street.