I agree that this is good attempt to engage with the situation of Aborigines outside their traditional outback setting: very few Australian films actually show Aborigines where they now mostly live - in cities. But there is one scene which continues to trouble me. After the birth of her unwanted baby the 17-year old heroine of the story deliberately drops her baby onto the hospital floor so that it is killed. A mercy killing? Or a rather late abortion? She is shown doing this in a kind of trance, clearly because somehow she must be exonerated. After that, the film shows her leaving her small town heading for Sydney, like so many other Aborigines have done before. Well, she is entitled to having a go, but the social reality of the past decades was that Aborigines heading for Sydney will end up in the ghetto of Redfern, will be unemployed, will hit the bottle and will lead, yet again, the existence of fringe dwellers. But why did Beresford condone the killing of a baby? It is speculated in historical studies that the way Aboriginal tribes maintained an even population (which was necessary so that a sustainable relationship with the environment was facilitated) was through that method. But somehow in the film what the viewer gets is the message, "oh those dumb Abbos, they kill babies and nobody blinks an eyelid, well they have no moral feelings." And that would be a truly racist message.
Review of The Fringe Dwellers
