The Australian government has accused Africans of failing to integrate into Australian society. It also complains of groups of young African men drinking alcohol in parks at night.
This follows on from the revelation that the Australian government has cut the number of Africans in its refugee intake from 70 per cent four years ago, to 30 per cent.
Now, who said the White Australia policy was dead and buried?
The government blames Africans for not integrating, but having had the misfortune to live in Australia, I'd put money on the real problem being Australians (most of whom are white) not accepting the immigrants. After all, they've successfully persecuted the native Aborginals for the last two hundred years or so. G'day mate, who's up for a bit of genocide?
It's almost impossible to imagine what African refugees have endured in a country that must be one of the most hostile towards non-caucasians, second only to its spiritual sibling, white South Africa. And the complaint of young African men drinking in parks is a sick joke - ever seen how Australians behave when let loose around the globe, let alone at home? Parts of London are awash with Aussie vomit most nights of the week - and that's just the women.
Learn about the ugly face of modern Australia
here.
There's barely any dialogue - proof indeed that actions speak louder than words - with most of the action played out in body language: stolen glances and intense sex are the language of this piece. The BFI says it's a "masterful exercise in visual storytelling" and it isn't wrong. The two leads, Jonás (Miguel Angel Hoppe Canto) and Gerardo (Fernando Arroyo) as two students, are thoroughly engaging, and just so happen to be very, very easy on the eye - even if, distractingly, Jonás bares an uncanny resemblance to Jason out of Coronation Street.
If there's one flaw it's the duration, an ailment modern cinema suffers acutely from - at more than two hours and eighteen minutes this one tests the patience, and my reaction might well have been considerably less favourable had I been trapped in a cinema for that long. But here we have quantity and quality, and that's rare. Broken Sky is nothing less than stunning - if, by the final act, you don't feel the full, stomach-churning impact of the flashback revealing what really happened on the dancefloor, then you haven't really loved and lost...
