Westerns are not the smash hit cinematic genre they once were, but every few years, we are reminded that the genre still has plenty of fans. The latest example is a Western that wasn’t even made in America – it’s an Australian Western that was a hit in its native continent, but failed to gain much attention internationally. That’s changing now, five years after the film was first in theaters, thanks to Paramount+ users helping to boost it up the charts.
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High Ground (2020) is an Australian Western that is based on post-WWI historical events that occurred in Arnhem Land, which is part of the Northern Territory of Australia. It highlighted the history of the Aboriginal peoples of the region and was seen as a dramatized historical epic that deals with some of the darker aspects of Australia’s colonialist history.
In the words of the fim’s synopsis, High Ground is “Set against the stunning landscapes of 1930s Arnhem Land,” and follows the story of “young Aboriginal man Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul) who in a bid to save the last of his family teams up with ex-soldier Travis (The Mentalist star Simon Baker) to track down Baywara – the most dangerous warrior in the Territory, who is also his uncle. As Travis and Gutjuk journey through the outback, they begin to earn each other’s trust, but when the truths of Travis’ past actions are suddenly revealed, it is he who becomes the hunted.”
High Ground‘s Real History, Explained
The cinematic events of High Ground (2020) aren’t historically accurate, per se: instead, the film is a revisionist Western much like Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, in which a marginalized or oppressed group gets (fictional) justice through some kind of heroic journey and/or revenge quest. However, the real history the film references is the “Gan Gan massacre” of 1911, in which more than 30 men, women, and children of the Indigenous Australian riverside community of Gan Gan were killed by colonial police and settlers who were moving into the region.
According to reports from witnesses, the men of several tribes were at a private ceremony one day when men rode into their villages on horseback and began executing women and children. This led to a heated battle, as the men tried to defend their land, but their spears weren’t a match for the guns being turned against them. After Gan Gan, the Aboriginals killed two colonists at Trial Bay in retaliation, and the riders, led by a man named “Bill Harney,” rode to Birany Birany, where they massacred more men, women, and children. As a gruesome epilogue, Harney reportedly returned a year later to collect the skulls of his victims as trophies.
High Ground’s Cultural Impact Was Massive
The High Ground movie deals with the last cultural impact of Gan Gan and other related massacres or incidents of violence, which are part of Australia’s geographic and cultural history. The film scored well with critics and currently holds a 90% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Culturally, the film was celebrated as a pinnacle cinematic achievement: The Film Critics Circle of Australia named it the “Best Australian Film of 2021,” and High Ground went on to earn eight nominations at the AACTA Awards (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards), which are Australia’s equivalent of the Oscars. It would ultimately win in just one category, “Best Costume Design” for the work of designer Erin Roche.
On a less quantifiable note, High Ground (2020) opened the door even wider for Australians to reconcile with their own cultural past, while opening a window for more viewers from other countries to get introduced ot history they may have never learned about, before. And as the viewership numbers on Paramount+ indicate, that’s exactly what’s happening now. Better late than never.
You can stream High Ground (2020) on Paramount+.
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