Film review: Utopia - John Pilger's documentary reveals 'shocking poverty' of Australia's indigenous communities

John Pilger, 115 mins (12A)

Geoffrey Macnab
Thursday 14 November 2013 22:00 GMT
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Australia is one of the richest countries in the world and yet, as John Pilger's angry, impassioned documentary reveals, indigenous communities still live in "unchanging, shocking poverty".

The racism may no longer be as overt as in the early 1960s but what Pilger calls "the denigrating of their humanity" continues.

When Pilger interviews white passers-by on "Australia Day," many blithely rehash cultural clichés. "That's what they (the Aboriginal people) want… that's how they like to live," one old lady tells Pilger.

The Aboriginal people, meanwhile, are left to eke out an existence as "refugees in their own country".

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