High Ground (2021): Colonial Sovereignty, Identity and the White Saviour Narrative

Introduction

The opening massacre in High Ground (2021) confronts viewers with the violence of Australia’s colonial past. Rather than treating the film’s fictionalised events as a direct historical record, this analysis considers how they evoke the history of frontier violence and its continuing legacies for identity and belonging. The film draws attention to the unequal relationship between Aboriginal communities and colonisers and invites wider reflection on the persecution of minorities. The Gan Gan massacre is among the historical events that informed the film (National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, 2021; ACMI, n.d.).

Moreton-Robinson (2015) argues that possession of land remains embedded in the Australian national imagination. Yet colonial violence demonstrates that rights to land and access to justice were not shared equally. This essay examines how High Ground depicts colonial white sovereignty, how cultural narratives circulate ideas of white ownership, and how the film portrays Aboriginal identity and cultural practices.

Film and historical context

Set largely in Arnhem Land, High Ground combines stories and languages from Aboriginal communities. Director Stephen Maxwell Johnson describes it as a fictional narrative inspired by historical events. Written by Chris Anastassiades, the film was co-produced by Witiyana Marika, who plays Grandfather Dharrpa and served as a senior cultural adviser. It follows the aftermath of a police massacre of Aboriginal people. Travis, a former sniper who saved Gutjuk as a child, later returns and asks the young man to help locate his uncle, Baywara. Their relationship is shaped by conflicting loyalties and Gutjuk’s struggle to determine his own place in the world (Screen Australia, n.d.; Savage Films, n.d.).

Colonial sovereignty and the racial contract

According to Moreton-Robinson (2015), colonial white sovereignty is a regime of authority rooted in the illegitimate claiming of land and expressed through institutions such as the state and judiciary. Sovereignty was historically associated with monarchs, but authority later came to be exercised through the state and the Crown. In the film, this authority becomes visible when the police chief points to the badge on his hat during negotiations with Yolngu people and identifies it with the Crown and the King. The moment invokes a hierarchy of race and class. Alcoff (2015) likewise examines the connections between social identity, history and lived experience. High Ground presents the Crown as a symbol of unequal power imposed upon Aboriginal people.

Moreton-Robinson and Nicoll (2006) examine how white possession shapes the rights and authority recognised within Australian society. Colonial power enabled white settlers to treat Indigenous people as inferior and appropriate Indigenous land in the name of patriarchal white sovereignty. As a regime of control, sovereignty can constrain some groups while empowering others.

Although rights may be formally recognised, people do not necessarily have equal resources or opportunities to exercise them. Ethnicity, class, gender and sexuality intersect with structures of authority that shape social life. The film’s depiction of the massacre gives these arguments a concrete narrative setting.

Culture, gender and representation

Aboriginal cultures and traditions are represented in High Ground through dance and other practices. The snake and hawk dances associated with Baywara and Gutjuk, respectively, offer examples. The film also depicts healing traditions. McKendrick et al. (2013) argue that healing programs should reflect the needs of particular communities and draw on appropriate cultural knowledge.

Performativity is an important concept in gender studies, particularly in discussions of cultural recognition and representation (Butler, 2009). High Ground portrays an Aboriginal woman as fierce, while the white character Claire appears gentle and merciful. This contrast invites questions about the expectations attached to race and gender in the film’s characterisation. Johnson’s direction also places Travis and Gutjuk between white and Aboriginal societies, raising questions about reconciliation and unequal power.

In An Analytic of Whiteness, Alcoff (2015) considers how identity categories are formed through historical events and social conventions, rather than simply imposed through official recognition. Historical distributions of property and authority continue to influence social status and cultural practices. These contexts also help explain how the white-saviour narrative can appear familiar or natural.

The white-saviour narrative

My final argument concerns how High Ground portrays the white-saviour complex. In certain respects, the film draws on a white-hero narrative: Travis saves Gutjuk from the massacre, and their later relationship raises questions about dependence, authority and obedience within colonial power structures. The missionary camp likewise depicts religion as an instrument of control.

Hughey (2014) examines the white-saviour film as a narrative in which a white protagonist helps people of another race while questions of sacrifice, redemption and racial inequality shape the story. His analysis offers a framework for interrogating the ideological meanings of apparently sympathetic characters. Applying that framework to High Ground made me reconsider a trope I had not recognised when I first watched the film. Understanding it requires attention to its historical forms and to the cultural assumptions that sustain it.

Conclusion

High Ground questions Australian colonial institutions and directs attention to Indigenous identity, white sovereignty and the unequal construction of gendered and racial identities. At the same time, its representations of rescue, reconciliation and cultural difference invite critical examination of the hierarchies that continue to shape Australian cultural narratives.