Sometimes we choose a movie, and sometimes the movie chooses us. One of my favorite films right now, a film that definitely chose me, is a little-known 1991 Australian feel-good movie called Dingo, directed by Rolf de Heer, about a blue-collar handyman in the Australian Outback whose secret love is the trumpet.
For most of his life, the world of John "Dingo" Anderson (Colin Friels) was relatively small. His boyhood days were spent in the tiny town of Poola Flats, located so deep in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia that you'd be hard-pressed to find it on any maps. One sweltering summer afternoon, a massive jetliner makes an unscheduled landing in Poola Flats, and out onto the tarmac steps jazz trumpeter Billy Cross (played by the legendary Miles Davis). To pass the time, Cross and his combo perform an impromptu concert for the locals, and young John Anderson becomes so mesmerized by the music that he strikes up a conversation with the mysterious Cross, who urges John to become a musician ("You seem tuned into us, John") and offers a standing invitation for John to visit should he ever be in Paris.
Flashforward two decades later, and John is meting out a living for himself and his family by doing odd jobs and tracking pesky dingos. He has indeed taken up the trumpet, playing rather standard sets with a local Tex-Mex combo, but when he is out in the wilderness on a job, he sits alone in his tiny trailer, listening to old Billy Cross albums and playing his trumpet along with the music. We learn that John has been sending tapes of his trumpet play to Cross's address in Paris, and he has secretly been saving money so he can one day make a pilgrimage to the City of Lights himself and take Cross up on his 20-year-old invite.
The entire first half of Dingo follows John's frustration and his dreams. The music he plays with his combo is bland and uninspiring. His wife adores him but doesn't seem to understand him. The only time he seems happy is when he stands alone in the Kimberley, making his trumpet howl and listening to the dingos howl back in response. Clearly, John is a man with a great passion, and yet no one in his life--not even the woman he loves--fully understand him.
You don't have to love jazz or Paris or Australia or the trumpet or Miles Davis to love Dingo ... but it helps. I happen to love all those things, but more than that, I feel a connection to this film. Growing up in a small town myself, feeling the weight of my own dreams that seem to outgrow my surroundings, I totally feel John and his daily trudge towards his destiny. I love the child-like wonder in his face when he plays the trumpet--eyes closed, body constricted, as if having a spiritual experience. I get his frustration and sadness as he wanders about a small town literally in the middle of nowhere, sensing that he is made for better things but not sure what they are. I like a scene where he sits on his truck in the middle of the Kimberley, howling on his trumpet and imagining Billy Cross's combo in the distance, waving for him to join them. The imagery of evocative of one of my favorite films, Field of Dreams, but more than this, it taps into my own childhood imagination, when I used to explore the wetlands south of town and dream of meeting my comic book heroes to be taken away on some mad adventure.
Dingo moves with the lazy rhythms of a good piece of jazz, but it works structurally as a traditional tale of a dreamer following his bliss. In some ways, the staging of the narrative is similar to a sports drama (scrappy underdog fights to get his shot and succeeds), and when John gets his moment in the sun, the goofy grin on his face and joyous twinkle in his eyes are enough to make even the least discerning listener a jazz fan.
If you're a dreamer, and if you can find Dingo, I urge you to watch it. It's not streaming online yet, but you can order the DVD, and the soundtrack can be purchased on iTunes. For jazz lovers, this album gets my highest reccommendation, plus it keeps all the tracks in order and incorporates just enough dialogue from the film to give you a sense of the narrative. When I need to be centered, I pull this album up on my iPod and drift away.
Here below is a track from the musical score entitled "The Dream." In the context of the film, John is listening to one of Billy Cross's albums and playing along with his trumpet. As he plays, he retreats into a fantasy world where he and Cross share the stage, playing a gentle duet. This aching melody is a recurrent musical motif throughout the film, first heard when young John spies Billy Cross's massive jet drifting from the sky. Its melody is simple, but it captures the longing of a dreamer as he fights to guard his heart from the world.
The two photos in the video are of Colin Friels, director Rolf de Heer, and the great Miles Davis discussing the dream sequence. Miles was quite ill during this shoot and would die shortly after the production was completed, but according to de Heer's journal, the jazz legend was a consummate professional and a joy to work with.
Give this track a listen, then go find the movie ... and whatever you do, always follow your bliss.
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