This glowing, anthropologically flavoured drama – Australia’s nominee for the foreign-language film Oscar – features an unlikely cameo from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip by way of an argument for arranged marriage. It’s one way in which Tanna, set among the tribes of the eponymous Pacific island in the Vanuatu archipelago, outlines its interest in how indigenous peoples experience broader human truths: in this case, how society always exacts its price from the individual.
Chieftain’s son Dain, the villager with the flyest fern headdress, falls for broad-smiling beauty Wawa, but their attraction threatens neighbouring tribal bonds. It could be something from Renaissance drama. In fact, it is: Romeo and Juliet (almost). With such lush locations, it must have been a temptation for directors Martin Butler and Bentley Dean to epically frame the lovers ad nauseam. But they restrict themselves to one silhouetted shot against the local volcanic eruption, and spend more time in proximity to fantastically vital performances from the Yakel-tribe cast. Less fixated than 2015’s Embrace of the Serpent on the threat to indigenous people from the outside, Tanna is an open-throated and universal call for change from within.
