Arquivo

The film tells the extraordinary life story of Daisy Bates, a legend from Australia known as the female version of Lawrence of Arabia. Interweaving fiction and biography, history and memory, present and past, she shows her abilities as anthropologist, linguist and woman with no conventionl definition. True to the monarchy, and a faithful upholder of the British Empire, some believe she was a saint and tireless supporter of the aborigenes. Others, however, see Bates as manipulating, snobbish, and perverse. Photographs, personal annotations, interviews, letters, and newspaper articles have been used to disclose the life of one of the persons responsible for the exploration of Australia. A respectable Victorian lady, she threw herself into this new world as corresponding journalist for “The Times”. Her lovers and her miserable infancy in Scotland are part of the film.