The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

“The chant of the underdog”

Jimmie Blacksmith (Tom E. Lewis), a part-Aboriginal man in Australia, wants what the white settlers tell him a man can have: steady work, a wage, a place of his own. Fred Schepisi follows him as he takes jobs from men like Farrell (Ray Barrett) and takes direction from the Rev. Neville (Jack Thompson), each pressing him to become one of them. The film puts the demand to assimilate on screen as a weight that grows heavier the harder he tries to carry it.