Young John Anderson is captivated by jazz musician, Billy Cross when he performs on the remote airstrip of his Western Australian outback hometown after his plane is diverted. Years later, now a family man and making a meagre living tracking dingoes and playing trumpet in a local band, John still dreams of joining Billy on trumpet and makes a pilgrimage to Paris.
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This was on SBS TV recently in Australia and is still listed on SBS on Demand http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/369526339639/dingo as of Feb 2015I'm a country boy, although growing up in the South-West of Western Australia is nowhere near as remote as the countryside shown in the movie.Still, I could relate to that music, in that setting, as the perfect eerie accompaniment to the land's empty indifference.The reviewers who have said it is unrealistic because of the lack of Aboriginal characters are wrong - I counted at least four in the background of the 1969 scene - look for the pink shirt and the guy in the blue tank-top behind the kids at the airport.The Australian characters are absolutely spot-on, not the caricatures of Croc Dundee.
I have an old VHS copy of this film and I haven't had a VHS player for more than a decade. I'm not even sure if this ever came out on DVD, I've never seen it in a video shop and I have looked through many. This movie is kind of like an Outback Australian Sci-Fi Jazz Road Trip, brought to you by the man who blessed us with Bad Boy Bubby. The opening scene when Miles Davis lands his space ship (commercial airliner?!?!!), in the desert and proceeds to blow fragile rural minds to smithereens with an awesome array of Jazz Fusion is priceless. I pray to the almighty gods of Jazz that they might one day release this fine film in a format befitting cinema as far out as this.
Sadly this film is an undiscovered little gem, it was not widely shown in the United States. Anyone who loves jazz, Miles Davis especially, will wish to see it. But you do not have to like jazz to like this film, nor do you have to be a fan of Australian films to like this film!It is wonderfully done, a real shame it did not reach wider audiences. One outstanding performance - although a small one in the film - is Hans Meyer as the owner of a Paris jazz club.
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.
