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HEARTLANDby Mark Wallace.
"If pressed to nominate the most significant production to come out of the ABC....I'd have to say Heartland."
So said the managing director of the ABC, David Hill, at the recent official launch of Aunty's new 13-part series about the mysterious death of an Aboriginal girl in a small coastal town.
"For the Aboriginal people, you have done something the dimensions of which you will only begin to understand in years to come," Hill continued.
High praise indeed, which was undoubtedly influenced by the tears that were shed by the people who watched it with him in his office at the Sydney head quarters of the ABC.
Heartland, which begins its 11-week run at 8.30pm on Wednesday, is indeed brave and confronting television.
According to its star, Ernie Dingo, whose talents continue to impress in whichever field he decides to turn his hand to, "Heartland comes from the heart, and that's all we've got to give."
Beginning at 8.30 on Wednesday, viewers will see the tragic story of the circumstances endured by a smalltown Aboriginal community, and how much more difficult it is for injustice to be seen and action to be taken in a system that is geared against minorities.
Heartland is also a love story involving two people convinced of the innocence of the prime suspect. She's white, he's not. no big deal, really, and yet it is the very point actress Cate Blanchett has been hounded by in most of her pre-publicity interviews. How difficult must something be just because we don't see it every day.
Which is the real beauty of Heartland. It forces comfortable white-bred yuppies entrenched in a self-serving attitude that we're all wonderfully liberal citizens to question those beliefs when confronted with the realities of life beyond the bright lights.
Ernie Dingo heads a fine cast in Heartland. He plays Vincent Burunga, the Aboriginal Liaison Officer at Brooklyn Waters who lives on the razor's edge between loyalty to his people and dedication.
Cate Blanchett plays Beth Ashton, recovering from divorce by taking up her grandfather's estate, and somehow coming to terms with a very different way of life in the country.
"I'm more of a watcher, where Beth feels she has to participate, and bravely goes where a lot of people wouldn't," she said. "I believe in giving people space to reveal themselves and not always tackling things head on as she does, although she displays a great honesty in doing so."
She arrives as an outsider but discovers more about her grandfather's life and the people he was linked to more closely than she imagined.
The growing relationship between Burunga and Ashton is put to the test, having to survive the hostility between the black and white communities as well as the obstacles of their very different backgrounds, attitudes and cultures.
She gets a challenging and confronting insight into his background when she travels with him to his home in outback Western Australia where traditional law is still strong within the community. He must deal with her urban white environment when they pursue the accused youths case in Sydney.
The third strand of the mini-series concerns the people of the Binbilla Aboriginal community just outside the town and its battle to reconstruct their community in their own way and restore their self-esteem.
Heartland's producers have come up with a marvelous cast featuring many fine Aboriginal actors such as Bob Maza, whose experience helped with scripting in an unofficial capacity, which gives Ro Hume's work a real authority and credibility.
The Canberra Times TV Guide, Sunday, March 20th, 1994.