Truly startling and mortifying and a real challenge because it shows everything as plain as it needs to be shown. It takes its time to show Jimmie as a man who is put down upon at every step by those he works for, under so many who see him at every turn as less than. Compounding that is that he elopes with a white woman, and she seems to have his child (until, well, you should watch to see the reveal on that which makes for a further wrinkle for Jimmie), and that others tell the woman to get away because... he's Black, after all, what, he cant be a farher.
So when Jimmie finally snaps, it is not shown as some inevitable act, it is more as many common acts of violence are in the world: brutal, stupid and sudden escalation, which gets reframed by everyone, Jimmie and the White citizens, as "right" and "wrong." The thing aboht "Chant" is it's a story that means to reckon with the very real horrors of racism (it could be America or Australia or South America or anywhere), while at the same time the filmmakers are not making Jimmie Blacksmith into a sympathetic figure (which would be... not sure what that movie looks like!)
Or, let me amend that, it is not that there isn't some sympathy that Shlepsi and company have for Jimmie, rather that he and the writers show that he is a man, originally shaped by a very low-wrung working class life with little education and the double problem of being mixed race (which is commented on later on in the film by the white folks who did care for him, in their way, once), so he is of his time just like everyone else is of their time. And everyone is already so scared of their own shadows that the murders make it into bedlam.
You know Jimmie has gone way over the edge once he commits those murders, but going into the movie I had the (very) mistaken impression it was a series of revenge killings. But there isn't any sense in what is going on as being righteous or worth having some vicarious "yeah, you go, Jimmie!" Like say, oh, Django Unchained to give a basic example. While it's extreme to compare it to, oh, 12 Years a Slave, it is a film that looks on in despair at what humanity is capable of.
The violence here is quick and ugly and senseless, and by the end there is little catharsis. But throughout the film there are nuances to the depictions of the Whites, and not everyone is out to immediately snuff out one of the Aborigines like Jimmie - the focal point to me about three quarters in with the more bookish man that Jimmie and his brother take along and they actually sit and talk, and while he brings up to Jimmie the bigger picture of what White's have given to Aborigines (alcohol, diseases, school), what so powerful is how muted it is. This isnt some giant dramatic scene, it is low key and sad and grubby.
Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is not always an easy watch except that Shlepsi is a terrific director of actors (Tom E Lewis's debut! But also Thompson, Barrett and Punch in a difficult role) and keeps the pacing here moving along well while finding time for meditative images (extreme close ups of ants and bugs in perpetual violence and conquering of their own), and even though it's set in the late 19th century, turn of the 20th, it packs a message without being preachy.
