Dingo (1991)

If there was an 11 I would score 11. I love this film I have watched it dinned out on it sung about it turned people onto it for years! In a strange parrallel I'm living out my own version of Dingo due to my admiration for the film/story/characters. This is without doubt my favourite Australian film and nobody knows about it! It's going to be a time capsual thing 100 years from now a new generation and all that jazz. What the film also represents is the maypole that highlights the seemingly corrupt? Inept, commercially driven world of the Australian film critic ....Correct me if I'm wrong David and Margaret take a bow here....this film got completely ignored !?!? WTF! Even the Oscars snubbed it because the paperwork was filled out incorrectly. Bless. In a way it's fitting like a pure and perfect M.Davis note. There is no mistaking that this is his love/life letter to his fans , he is the man, it's his only film role he also passed just before film got distribution. I wonder if that mucked up the press junket's. Shame on you film critics and long live hope and striving for your dreams. I hope you get there!

I loved this movie - partly as a story about jazz, and jazz musicians. Along this line, it couldn't have been better than to star Miles Davis. Knowing nothing of Miles' private life, I wouldn't be in the least surprised to hear the portrayal of Billy Cross was mostly autobiographical. If it had been a non-musical actor, the movie would still be entirely worthwhile. With Miles, Michelle Legrand and Chuck Finley, the music could only be of the highest caliber and indeed, was.However, regardless of the jazz aspect, the point of my review is that this is not just a jazz movie. There are several subplots, which are about people, each of whom has a dream (a goal dream, not a sleep dream). At one point, this is even brought up in the dialog, though it's left appropriately unanswered. The movie follows their lives towards these dreams. In some characters these dreams are, shall we say, past.And of course the scenery, the Australian outback and the streets of Paris is wonderful. The soundtrack includes the background sound of these places, so different yet helps us to see what is shared.When this movie came out it had a one day run in Seattle. What a shame that it was so brief.

In many ways, "Dingo" can be thought of as a thinking-person's Crocodile Dundee. It tells the story of a young man who has lived in the Australian bush all his life, and had a cathartic moment at age 12 when veteran jazz-blues trumpeter Billy Cross (Miles Davis) lands his plane on the local airstrip and plays an impromptu jazz session. As Cross is about to leave, the boy tells him that the music is the best thing he'd ever heard. Cross then says that if the boy is ever in Paris, he should look him up. Twenty years later, and the boy has become a trumpeter who has always remembered this invitation. His wife and friends tell him he'll never get to Paris. The movie follows the man's passions, and with a spaciousness and sparcity that fits in well with the glorious outback. Colin Friels is perfect for the role.. playing the bush-bred trumpet-playing 'dogger' who is constantly after a dingo who will not be caught.. just as in his own life, he hangs onto that twenty-year old dream of going to Paris. In Paris there is salvation, both for him and the aging, damaged Billy Cross (played minimally, but effectively, by Davis). And the jam in the Paris nightclub must rank as one of the great filmed sessions in Jazz history. If you love jazz or blues, you must see this film. If you love the Australian bush, or wish to understand it, you must see this film. If you are in neither category, see it anyway.

the only problem, I and others noticed, was the exclusion of Australian Aborigines. The film depicts the outback Nullabor townships as consisting of just white people. Therefore the authenticity was ruined somewhat.