Journey Home, David Gulpilil review: a fitting tribute to a cinematic hero

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains the name and image of a person who has died, with full permission from David Gulpilil’s family

Debuting at the Sydney Film Festival and also playing MIFF before releasing nationally on 30 October, Trisha Morton-Thomas and Maggie Miles’ illuminating, elegiac documentary Journey Home, David Gulpilil traces the final voyage of an irreplaceable talent.

When Walkabout director Nicholas Roeg first spotted the incandescent presence of late Yolŋu legend mid-traditional dance, he knew instantaneously that he’d found the First Nations lead of his soon-to-be Palme d’Or-nominated film.

A star turn that would take the 17-year-old from Gupulul, in the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land, to Buckingham Palace to meet the then-queen of England (and The Beatles’ John Lennon) on his way to the Cannes Film Festival.

This spectacular emergence began an illustrious career that solidified Gulpilil as one of the most magnetic performers to ever hail from this ancient and sacred land. Working with the likes of Peter Weir, Rolf de Heer, Phillip Noyce and Ivan Sen in seminal films including Storm Boy (x2), The Last Wave, Crocodile Dundee, Ten Canoes, Rabbit-Proof Fence and Goldstone, Gulpilil was iridescent.

But dislocation from the red dirt of his home remained a great source of sadness when ill health confined him to his home in Murray Bridge, South Australia, where he passed on 29 November, 2021.

His family and friends were determined to fulfil his dying wish that he be returned to his Country. No small feat, given Gupulul is at the opposite end of this great southern land, with the wet season in full swing, creating massive logistical and financial barriers. No matter.

David Gulpilil: remarkable insight

Narrated by Hugh Jackman, with contributions from Limbo star Natasha Wanganeen and also featuring storytelling from Baker Boy – a sure sign of just how high esteem Gulpilil was held in by his colleagues – this thoughtful and sensitively told doco allows the audience a remarkable insight into cultural practices that would normally remain far from the eyes of Balanda (non-Indigenous people, in Yolŋu Matha) as preparations are made for his Bäpurru (funeral). There’s no understating the generosity of this gift.

It’s one heck of a journey, involving boats, jeeps, planes and a helicopter, no less, with representatives from many clans guiding the way with great reverence as Gulpilil’s procession visits countless communities along the way. He’s also honoured in the NT parliament; a suitably epic send-off for someone who will shimmer for eternity on the silver screen.

As with director Molly Reynolds’ glorious documentary My Name is Gulpilil, great companion viewing, Miles and Morton-Thomas’ film makes clear that Gulpilil’s celebrity was a struggle, at times. The actor felt torn between two worlds. He also never got rich from it, preferring to look after his loved ones while living simply. As proud as she was, Gulpilil’s mother, Mary, felt as if she had lost her son to the whirlwind that followed, including jamming with Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley.

Sacrifices were made, and Journey Home, David Gulpilil is a fitting tribute to an incomparable talent who, as it turns out, always signed ‘five stars’ after his name. Not because of an actor’s ego – which would be well-deserved in his case, though out of character for such a magnanimous soul – but because of the heavenly bodies glowing in the night sky that led the way.

David Gulpilil: expansive beauty

Accompanied by a stirring piano-led score from composer David Bridie with traditional song thrumming through, the film also looks magnificent. Cinematographer Allan Collins captures the expansive beauty of the marshlands where a young Gulpilil once roamed, never seeing a white man until he was already eight years old, and where he swam like a goanna in deep and rapid rivers, according to his son, Jida.

Alongside the grandly sweeping vistas, the camera dwells on the littlest details, like a tiny, pearl-coloured hermit crab making its way to the sea or the sugarbag honey bees that meant so much to Gulpilil and his people, who wear their colours on their bodies, daubed in ochre, as he is laid to rest at long last, wrapped in the Rainbow Serpent’s colours.

There’s also the haunting image of a solitary tree swaying in the breeze, a thunderbolt of green standing tall against azure waves while feeding deep on a freshwater spring below storm-tossed rocks. And what better vision than that to personify a man who stood so brightly in his own remarkable light?

Journey Home, David Gulpilil opens in cinemas nationally on 30 October 2025, and is currently showing as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. Watch the Journey Home, David Gulpilil trailer.

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