The New Boy
‘The New Boy’, is the story of a young desert Aboriginal boy (Aswan Reid). The boy is interrupted by an Aboriginal policeman while apparently attempting to murder a white policeman out in the middle of the desert. This is perhaps an allegorical reference to the role of those aboriginals who were co-opted by colonial governors to assist in repressing those aboriginal tribes who were resisting colonisation.
The boy is taken to a remotely located orphanage or boys’ home run by a Catholic nun, Sister Eileen (Cate Blanchett) with assistance from another nun known as sister Mum and an older man, George. Sister Mum and George, like all or most of the other boys in the home are also of Aboriginal, or partly Aboriginal, descent.
It is a kindly, caring enough environment in the home although corporal punishment is tolerated, though not encouraged. But the other boys are already deeply inculcated by Catholicism and its hierarchical power structures. They lack the wildness, innocence, and physical prowess of the newcomer, who does not speak English, never dons a shirt or shoes, and who uses his hand rather than a spoon to eat. The newcomer is never given an English name. Francis is suggested as a possible name. But Sister Eileen decides that, for the time being at least, he can continue to be known simply as ‘the New Boy’.
The New Boy has another even more important unique quality-an ability to generate spiritual power through rubbing his fingertips together.
The film is not heavily plot driven. Rather, from early on, scenes from the daily life in the home provide the background for the New Boy’s indigenous, spirituality and abilities to be contrasted with the spiritual habits of Catholicism.
For example, there is a reference in the film to the Serpent having tempted Adam, resulting in the fall from Eden and the loss of innocence. The New Boy, on the other hand, handles snakes with ease and even allows some of them to slither over a statue of Jesus.
The New Boy also has healing power abilities and even experiences stigmata. In Christian mysticism, stigmata results in spontaneous bodily marks or bleeding on a person’s body, emulating those of the crucified Jesus Christ. Saint Francis of Assisi, renowned for his closeness to animals and nature, is said to have been the first stigmatic.
The New Boys behaviour and apparent spiritual gifts represent a challenge for Sister Eileen. She recognises his spiritual ability, perhaps even divinity. But she cannot reconcile these qualities in him with Catholic doctrine, its different set of rituals, or it accepted norms of “civilised” behaviour. The challenges result in her prostrating herself frantically praying allegiances of faith to her God.
Ultimately, the New Boy’s spirituality does seem to become impaired by his new environment. So, perhaps the film’s main theme is about colonisation, including the damage spiritual colonisation caused to indigenous spirituality and culture.
This is a theme worthy of exploration and the film, though not plot driven, is never boring and is beautiful to look at.
But a slight warning to those of atheistic bent- the New Boy’s ability to generate spirituality by rubbing his fingertips together thereby producing a buzzing light that flitters about in the air like an insect, might seem too much like something out of a cartoon or ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ to avoid breaking dramatic licence.
And even if the New Boy’s spiritual ways are in some ways closer to nature, or less hierarchical than Sister Eileen’s guilt ridden prostration before an imaginary Catholic God, they are perhaps none the less absurd to the non-believer.