It’s rites of passage, Italian style…
In this Australian import Marchetta gets the voice of teenage anguish perfect in a hormone saturated rite of passage story. Josephine Alibrandi, 17 and of Australian Ancestry, is split between her traditional upbringing, embodied by her immigrant grandmother and her domineering mother, and the everyday quirks of being of teenage society. A scholarship student at a well-regarded Catholic girls’ school, she struggles with feelings of inferiority not only because she’s poorer than the other students and an “ethnic,” but because her mother never married. These feelings are intensified when her father, whom she’s just met, enters and gradually becomes part of her life.
Josie experiences many things throughout the book regarding family, ethnicity, suicide, relationships, sexuality, school and friends. By facing these, Josie develops by making changes in her state of mind, self perception, hopes and aspirations, relationships, thoughts, opinions and ideas.
Josie is confused about her ethnicity because she is caught between the country she was born in and the culture of her family. Josie struggles to balance the control of her Italian background and the freedom of Australia around her. This is seen when Josie leaves her family and goes to the beach with her friends. She says: “I’ll run one day, run for my life, to be free and think for myself. Not as an Italian, not as an Australian and not as an in between. I’ll run to be emancipated if my society will let me.”
Dealing with John’s suicide had an immense impact on Josie. She believed he had the perfect life – wealth, intelligence, popularity. Despite this John was not happy and ended his life in suicide. In his suicide note to Josie he says:
“If I could be anything other than what I am
I’d want it tomorrow
If I could be what my father wants me to be
Maybe I could stay for that too
If I could be what you want me to be
I’d want to stay
But I am what I am and all I want is freedom.”
The news of John’s death causes Josie to realise that life is too precious to give up, in the sense of giving up on a challenge.
In Looking for Alibrandi Josie undergoes a search for identity and she eventually comes to terms with her family situation, her illegitimacy, her ethnicity, her sexuality and her peers. She finds that she is an Australian thinking girl in an Italian setting. Josie matures from being a self absorbed, melodramatic, to being rational, free and having an understanding of who she is. This can enable us to see that facing the challenges put before us will allow us to grow in self knowledge and identity.
“I am an Australian with Italian blood running rapidly through my veins I’ll say that with pride because it is pride that I feel.”
Three boys. Two Laws. One Country.
Caught in a conflict amid the present world of popular culture and the oldest living culture on earth, Lorrpu, Botj and Milika are three Yolngu teenagers who once shared a childhood dream of becoming important hunters together. But things have changed and their paths are deviating. Botj is walking on the wild side, a lost soul in search of a place to belong. Milika is more interested in football and girls than any of the traditional knowledge he is being taught. Only Lorrpu seems to care about the dream any more.
When Botj goes too far and finds himself on the wrong side of both black and white law, Lorrpu must weigh up his own future against saving his friend. He convinces the boys to trek to Darwin to argue Botj’s case with Dawu, a tribal leader. Departing from their community, they journey through the treacherous rough country of north–east Arnhem Land to Darwin. To survive, Lorrpu, Milika and Botj must evoke on the traditional bush education they were taught as boys and, most importantly, the bonds of their friendship.
Yolngu Boy is about the search for self awareness, making the rollercoaster ride from adolescence to adulthood and the implications of belonging to a larger social group, whether it be culture, family or friends.
In Lorrpu’s dream at the start of the movie, we see the initiation of the boys into the tribe, during their younger years. At the end of the film, we see Lorrpu and Milika participating in the ceremony marking their transition into man-hood. But the boys also complete a personal change of perspective by undertaking the journey from Arnhem Land to Darwin. They learn that sometimes the values that are important to them conflict with each other, and that sacrifices must be made. The choices the boys make between those values help determine their identities.
