John Anderson (Colin Friels) has a passion for jazz, which will find him travelling from the outback Western Australia to the jazz clubs of Paris where he hopes to meet his idol trumpeter Billy Cross (Miles Davis).
Probably the best part of this movie is the opening, as Davis and his band play a set on a remote airstrip in the Australian outback as the locals watch.
This film has some basis in reality, as Australia's best jazz saxophonist Bernie McGann would often leave his mailman job to practice out in the wild.
Directed by Rolf de Heer (Bad Boy Bubby) and written by Marc Rosenberg, who had worked with de Heer on Encounter at Raven's Gate, this is one of the last filmed performances of Davis, who also scored the film along with Michel Legrand.
Dingo
1991
Action / Drama / Music
Plot summary
Traces the pilgrimage of John Anderson, an average guy with a passion for jazz, from his home in outback Western Australia to the jazz clubs of Paris, to meet his idol, jazz trumpeter Billy Cross.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Great Miles performance
Bit slow and dated but beautiful
This was on SBS TV recently in Australia and is still listed on SBS on Demand http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/video/369526339639/dingo as of Feb 2015
I'm a country boy, although growing up in the South-West of Western Australia is nowhere near as remote as the countryside shown in the movie.
Still, I could relate to that music, in that setting, as the perfect eerie accompaniment to the land's empty indifference.
The reviewers who have said it is unrealistic because of the lack of Aboriginal characters are wrong - I counted at least four in the background of the 1969 scene - look for the pink shirt and the guy in the blue tank-top behind the kids at the airport.
The Australian characters are absolutely spot-on, not the caricatures of Croc Dundee.
I Cannot Believe That This Film Only Has 4 Reviews.
I have an old VHS copy of this film and I haven't had a VHS player for more than a decade. I'm not even sure if this ever came out on DVD, I've never seen it in a video shop and I have looked through many. This movie is kind of like an Outback Australian Sci-Fi Jazz Road Trip, brought to you by the man who blessed us with Bad Boy Bubby. The opening scene when Miles Davis lands his space ship (commercial airliner?!?!!),in the desert and proceeds to blow fragile rural minds to smithereens with an awesome array of Jazz Fusion is priceless. I pray to the almighty gods of Jazz that they might one day release this fine film in a format befitting cinema as far out as this.