The story itself functions like a traditional fable, one with intentionally broad characteristics and a plotline meant to pass along similarly broad morals from one generation to next. For the plot of Ten Canoes specifically, we get to watch the saga of Ridjimiraril (Crusoe Kurddal), who belongs to a tribe that is suspicious of outsiders and follows its own set of strictly enforced rules and tradition. One day, Ridjimiraril discovers that one of his wives is missing and over consulting with fellow members of his tribe, he comes to the conclusion that the only possible way this could have happened was by way of a rival tribe stealing her.
This sets him on a path for vengeance, one that results in him making more mistakes than victories. I'm sure you can guess what moral this kind of tale would and does end up providing, but like I said earlier about the personalities of the characters being intentionally broad in nature, the fact that the moral that one is supposed to glean from this story is conspicuous from the get-go is similarly purposeful. The story's overall goal isn't around creating an unpredictable lesson the audience can take away from the film rather its primary mission is to use a traditional framework as a means of highlighting a culture and it's the people.
In that respect, Ten Canoes is notably successful, especially in managing to create a story that does come off like a fable while also making the various individuals in the plot like Ridjimiraril and his fellow tribe members seem like real people. That sounds like a contradictory goal given how fables are intentionally supposed to be divorced from reality in their narratively tidy nature but that is indeed what happens thanks to the ensemble cast hired to portray these characters. There's a naturalism to the way the various players of the story interact with each other and furthering heightening how engaging the assorted characters of Ten Canoes are is that the various actors have great chemistry with one another.
Narration from David Gulpili is strewn throughout the entire motion picture and his soft-spoken but vocally engaging way of telling the story solidifies just how closely Ten Canoes echoes the old-fashioned storytelling techniques, you could totally see Gulpili telling this story to youngsters around a campfire in this exact same vocal cadence. Aside from a handful of moments where the narration feels like it could have been eschewed in favor of just letting the visuals do all the talking, David Gulpili's constant presence in Ten Canoes is a welcome one and he provides a warmth to this tale that feels fitting especially during some bittersweet climactic sequences depicting the tribe's rituals revolving around death.
In the world at large, there persist a variety of dehumanizing stereotypes surrounding individuals who were indigenous to lands that various European and other foreign settlers colonized. The specific stereotypes vary based on the individual ethnicities that were native to individual countries, but the purpose behind these enduring stereotypes is clear: by dehumanizing those who were here first, by reducing them to caricatures, the horrors wrought by colonialism can be mitigated since these Native populations are not thought of as human. Ten Canoes is a feature-length refutation of that thought process as the entire movie centers on the original residents of Australia and proceeds to tell an engaging tale of their relationships, their personalities, and their lives.
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