Sundance 2010 Preview: BRAN NUE DAE

There are a lot of gloomy, dark, almost melancholy films playing at Sundance this year.   Therefore, what better to brighten your day than an Australian musical set at a Catholic boarding school?   It stars, Geoffrey Rush, too, so you know at least one of the performances found within will be top notch.   Here’s hoping the vibrancy that is oozing off this film already is found throughout its entirety.

Official synopsis:

In her second time at the Sundance Film Festival, Rachel Perkins brings to the screen an adaptation of Jimmy Chi’s popular stage musical Bran Nue Dae, which was a national hit in Australia. It’s the summer of 1969, and with his evangelical mother pointing him toward the priesthood, earnest young Willie (Rocky McKenzie) attends a Catholic boarding school in Perth but, protesting its strict rules, runs away to his homeland. With Father Benedictus (Geoffrey Rush) in hot pursuit, he heads back to Broome, acquiring traveling companions along the way.

With songs and dances rooted in traditional Aboriginal performance, blues, rock and roll, Hollywood musicals, and the rituals of the Roman Catholic Mass, Willie sings and dances his way back to his own land and inspires the people around him to find their own truth. The colors of Aboriginal Australia shimmer in this wonderfully exuberant film, giving viewers a joyful romp while simultaneously touching on Aboriginal history and politics in a way that leaves us all wanting to be Aborigines.

BRAN NUE DAE is playing at the following times:

8:30 AM Fri, Jan 22 Racquet Club
9:45 PM Fri, Jan 22 Broadway Centre Cinemas V in Salt Lake City
6:00 PM Sun, Jan 24 Yarrow Hotel Theatre
7:00 PM Tue, Jan 26 Peery’s Egyptian Theater in Ogden
6:00 PM Wed, Jan 27 Egyptian Theatre
1:00 PM Fri, Jan 29 Holiday Village Cinema III
5:30 PM Sat, Jan 30 Holiday Village Cinema I

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