Australian Rules
Director Paul Goldman's 'Director's Statement' for the film reads: "Australian Rules tells the story of a young white boy growing up in a small coastal town in Australia. It's about all the kinds of courage it takes to grow up in a country that still refuses to. It's about taking a stand, about the responsibilities of manhood and nationhood. It's about relationships: between fathers and sons, mothers and sons, husbands and wives, blackfellas and whitefellas. It's also about the courage it takes to love. I wanted to make a film that talked back to this big, secret country that we live in.",All entries contain spoilers,Gary 'Blacky' Black: Old man's Fruit and Nut?
Liz Black: Old man's Fruit and f***ing nut,Featured in Behind the Scenes of 'Australian Rules' (2003),I remember very clearly watching this movie as a kid in my lounge room and feeling a sadness I had never felt before. Maybe it was being in a close family then witnessing another family that is torn apart due to things I couldn't even understand yet. Racism, domestic violence, alcoholism, and simple stupidity and ignorance.

I remember feeling so bad that blacky could do little bout the events that unfold, the people and attitudes he has to deal with, and the painful sadness of being a big hearted person surrounded by people who don't understand him, and the ones who do also being victims of the lives they live.

This is a good movie, but it's not an easy watch. Tt has a truth and a straightforward nature you really only see in indies rather than the big budget movies. We also have a talent in Australia to make films that don't just have a set of convenient events that lead to a happier conclusion. It's simply life, in all its messiness and ugliness. I guess like blacky you just have to find the happiness any way you can.,