Ernie Dingo & Cate Blanchett

Burned Bridge is a brave and confronting 13-part series about the mysterious death of an Aboriginal girl in (Brooklyn Waters) a small coastal town. Burned Bridge is a love story involving two people convinced of the innocence of the prime suspect. Cate Blanchett, & Ernie Dingo are the lovers, this was very controversial when this film was made. Ernie Dingo heads a fine cast in Burned Bridge. He plays Vincent Burunga, the Aboriginal Liaison Officer at Brooklyn Waters who lives on the razor’s edge between loyalty to his people and and his official Government job as Liaison Officer. Cate Blanchett plays Beth Ashton, while recovering from divorce she inherits her grandfather’s estate in Brooklyn Waters. She arrives as an outsider but discovers more about her grandfather’s life. She finds out that her grandfather has had several children by Aboriginal women. Beth is now a blood relative of several inhabitants of Brooklyn Waters. The growing relationship between Burunga and Ashton is put to the test, having to survive the hostility between the Aboriginal and white communities as well as the obstacles of their very different backgrounds, attitudes and cultures. Cate Blanchett gets a challenging and confronting insight into his background when she travels with him to his home in outback Western Australia where traditional law is still strong within the community. Ernie Dingo must deal with her urban white environment when they pursue the accused youths case in Sydney. The third piece of the mini-series concerns the people of the Binbilla Aboriginal community just outside of Brooklyn Waters and its battle to reconstruct their community in their own way and restore their self-esteem. This is a strong and very satisfying series, Cate Blanchett before she was Cate Blanchett. She later Starred in Elizabeth, and the rest is history, as they say. I highly recommend it. well worth renting.