Rent Charlie's Country (2013)

Affecting film about struggling with poverty and change - Charlie's Country review by TF

The opening shot is if a road entering an aboriginal Australian 'area'. Alcohol is banned, and when the aboriginees cross this line, they can still be banned (from purchasing alcohol). This is part of the tragedy, and Charlie thinks that the land should be theirs. Charlie retains his sense of humour, and with it some sense of his identity and of dignity. But things will go wrong and he must overcome them.

Painful to watch, and honest about the possibilities for redemption - Charlie's Country review by CP Customer

A very sad and very honest movie. The awful plight of the Australian aborigines - and aboriginal people everywhere - continues unabated. It is hard to think how such a situation can be redeemed, and this movie does not offer anything in the way if easy solutions.

Charlie is a basically decent man, surrounded by other basically decent people, but all of whom seem unmoored from worlds that could give some purpose to their lives. de Heer is never heavy handed in these scenes, and never entirely deprives these characters of all their agency. But the odds, we know, are stacked against them.

Only with the final scene, and that in a bitter sweet way, does a path toward some kind of redemption emerge. But a whole world has been lost, and much of value too. And it was a world within which people whatever else they lacked, did manage to preserve a kind of harmony with the natural world, a harmony now unstuck to such an extent that the conditions for life as know it are being undermined 

powerful - Charlie's Country review by HO

This is an incredibly moving, powerful film about modern Australia and the plight of the native community. Charlie is an great character, full of longing for freedom and a better life. I just love Australian cinema and this is it as it's finest.