Jimmie, an Aborigine, feels conflicted between staying true to his ethnic roots and trying to make something of his life which entails suffering vile racism from many of the White people he encounters. This erupts in bloody fashion.

Chant shows that the Powers That Be didn’t discriminate when they chose films to brand as Video Nasties. It played at the Cannes Film Festival before it dazzled film critics and arthouse cinema audiences around the world.

And for good reason. It’s a sumptuous epic, expertly directed with cinematography so beautiful that it will be seared onto your retinas.

But it’s also brutal. The scenes of the racism Jimmie and the other Aborigines experience is vile in the extreme. The violence that erupts leaves nothing to the imagination but should never have meant that the film be banned or branded as corrupting filth. It’s quite the opposite.

Uniformly brilliant performances but a special shout out must go out to Tom E Lewis as Jimmie who brings many layers to such a conflicted but utterly likeable character.

There’s also quite a few actors from Aussie soaps too. It’s always great to see Ray Meagher who played Alf ‘Flaming Gular’ Stewart in Home and Away.

4 out of 5 stars