Coming home
In 2017, David Gulpilil was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer and given six months to live. Filmmakers Molly Reynolds and Rolf de Heer rallied to make a documentary tribute to their longtime friend and collaborator.
But four years on, the trailblazing Australian actor walked the red carpet at the premier of what many had believed would be his cinematic eulogy. Frail now, David has also lived to see My Name is Gulpilil’s release in cinemas this month.
My Name is Gulpilil darts across time. In flashes of some of his greatest roles – in Walkabout, Storm Boy, Mad Dog Morgan, Crocodile Dundee, The Tracker, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Charlie’s Country – his screen presence, grace and intensity are mesmerising. As Molly says, “David has never, ever walked. He glides across planet Earth.”
My Name is Gulpilil is as much a musing on mortality as it is a film about one actor. It captures this proud Yolngu man, tethered to an oxygen bottle, yearning for family and country but wary of that final return. “I’m not scared, but I’m sorry,” he says of death. Sorry to be leaving this rich, wild life. “Who else has dined with the Queen, been to prison more than once and smoked his first joint with [reggae legend] Bob Marley?” asks Molly.
Of his talent, she adds: “David is one of Australia’s great actors. He is also a pioneer as an Indigenous actor. For all his charisma, magnificence and talent, he can still be mercurial, difficult and frustrating. But he is without peer.”