Third world filmmakers uses oral traditions in the form of storytelling to strengthen the community’s sense of identity and serve as a political tool in the struggle for greater control over issues important to the community. Storytelling customs has been used to oppose colonial tales produced by Europeans who wanted to separate local people from their ancestral lands. The local people value their ancestral land and sea very much. For example, in the film Mabo-Life of an Island Man, Indigenous Australians believe that their rights to land are inherited and are determined by intricate social procedures which are founded on customary values, relationship and marriage.
As a result, Mabo fights for his land rights even to the point of going to the court (Hill and Church 2000). Food plays a significant role in world cinema. Food is used as a language in world cinema as it exists in a social and cultural setting. In world cinema, food and eating scenes can denote class, power, gender and relationships. World cinema filmmakers have used scenes of eating like table scenes as a means of drawing together their character to provide information and to reveal their personalities and relationships.
Food in world cinema tells more about gender. For example, it can tell us if women do cook for their husband and if husbands do eat food cooked by their wives. Food in world cinema is used as a language as it is seen as an excellent medium through which domestic issues, power relations; class and ethnicity issues are revealed to us. For example, when a child refuses to eat it, he/she is expressing her displeasure with the mother and hence it tells us that their relationship is strained. The same also applies when the husband refuses to eat the food cooked by her wife.
Most films also use food as a metaphor to express sexual desires. A good example is the Film “Eat Drink Man Woman” which brings out these themes very Cleary. World cinema films largely deal with artistic products, histories and contemporary experiences, often including elements of the oral tradition and folklore. Third world filmmakers mostly use their traditional language. The use of a local language in films means a higher degree of self-determination and decolonization in the process of filming and its cinematic result.
In fact, third world films are meant to preserve that pass on cultural knowledge from one generation to the other. Hence, it is desirable to make use of a local language to make third world films than to use foreign languages. Producing films in local languages helps to prevent such languages from total degradation. Use of local languages in films provides a means for publicizing the community’s beliefs, traditions, customs and values as languages serve as a memory bank of the beliefs, traditions, customs and values of the people.
The use of local languages in different forms and level in films also enhances the aesthetic aspects of the film. Such films can also be used in informal classrooms where students can be taught these languages. As a result, local languages will continue to exit (Hansen M. 2000a). Indigenous films are fall within the brackets of world cinema. Indigenous films are films that depict Indigenous people, issues and stories. They are films which are mostly made by Indigenous Australians. Indigenous films form a significant part of Australia's culture.
The representation of Indigenous issues and people in film provides an exclusive insight into the correlation of Australia with its Indigenous people and traditions. Indigenous films provide a means of expression for Indigenous experience and Indigenous culture. Indigenous films tend to show areas in which indigenous people have been marginalized. For example, in the case of Mabo, we find that all the judges in the High courts were Europeans, there was no a single indigenous judge. However, we find that although the case was heard 10 years after Mabo had died, the Commonwealth parliament passed the Native title Act in 1993 which gave the indigenous people the right to own traditional land In terms of politics and ideology, world cinema tends to be ideologically conventional.
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