High Ground

On the 2026 VCE English and EAL text list, final year. High Ground is a List 1 multimodal text (film) for Reading and responding to texts and meets the Australian text requirement. 2026 is its fourth year on the list and it is not on the 2027 list, so this is the last year it can be examined. It is rated MA15+, and VCAA advises that some scenes contain sexual and physical violence, used to show the realities of colonial violence against First Nations Peoples. In 2025, 12 per cent of students wrote on it in Section A. No more than one of your two List 1 texts can be multimodal.

The film in brief

High Ground is set in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. It opens in 1919, the year after the end of the First World War. A Yolngu family group is camped peacefully at a waterhole when a police party attacks and massacres them. Travis, a former army sniper and now a policeman, is positioned on the rocks above; he cannot stop the killing and is haunted by it. Two people survive: a young boy, Gutjuk, and his uncle Baywara. Travis takes Gutjuk to a Christian mission, where he is raised by the missionary Claire and given the name Tommy. Travis leaves the police.

Twelve years later, in 1931, Baywara is leading attacks on white settlers and is the most wanted man in the Territory. The police commander, Moran, persuades the guilt-ridden Travis to track him down. Travis takes the now grown Gutjuk with him as tracker and translator, hoping to bring Baywara in without further bloodshed. Moran also sends Eddy, Travis's wartime spotter and an openly racist policeman, and Walter after them. Gutjuk, who has kept his connection to his people and his culture, learns from his grandfather, Grandfather Därrpa, and is chosen to translate in an attempt at negotiation (makarrata) between the Yolngu elders and the colonial authorities. Moran will not compromise.

The pursuit ends in violence. Travis shoots Baywara, believing he is about to kill Gutjuk, and shoots Walter to protect Gutjuk. Gutjuk, having learned that Travis was part of the police unit that massacred his family, shoots Travis. A final chaotic confrontation, with the mission church burning and a pile-up of shootings that echoes the opening massacre, includes Claire being forced to shoot Eddy to defend Gutjuk. The film closes with Gutjuk riding away with Gulwirri, a young Yolngu woman who had been with Baywara, and a return to the rock country where the story began.

Director and context

High Ground was directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson (who also directed Yolngu Boy) and written by Chris Anastassiades, from a story developed with Witiyana Marika, a Rirratjingu elder who was a producer and senior cultural adviser and who plays Grandfather Därrpa. It premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2020 and was released in Australian cinemas in 2021. It was filmed on Country in Kakadu and Arnhem Land with the permission of traditional owners.

Context you can use (always linked to a topic):

• Frontier massacres. The film fictionalises the kind of massacres that occurred across Australia well into the twentieth century. Marika has spoken of a real massacre of his people passed down to him through family oral history rather than taught at school.
• The "Great Australian Silence". For much of the twentieth century, frontier violence was left out of mainstream Australian history. High Ground belongs to a wider effort to tell these stories.
• After the First World War. Travis and Eddy are veterans shaped by the war, bringing its violence and trauma to the frontier.
• Missions and assimilation. Gutjuk's renaming as Tommy and his upbringing at the mission reflect policies that separated Aboriginal children from their families and culture.
• Makarrata. A Yolngu word describing the coming together of two parties after a dispute, acknowledging wrongs. It is also used in the Uluru Statement from the Heart (2017). The negotiation scene stages what a makarrata might have looked like, and its failure.
• Genre. Johnson has described the film as a "Northern": it borrows the conventions of the Western (the lawman, the frontier, horses and guns, the tracker, the showdown) and revises them by giving First Nations characters perspective and subjectivity.

Film techniques to analyse

• The opening massacre. A peaceful waterhole scene is shattered without warning. The sudden shift in sound and pace, and the time spent with the Yolngu family first, position the viewer with the victims.
• Landscape and drone shots. Sweeping aerial shots of the escarpments and rivers present Country as vast, ancient and enduring, beyond the human conflicts below. The rock country bookends the film.
• The title. The high ground is literal (the sniper's position, the elders' refuge in the rocks), military (the position of control) and moral (who has the right, and who keeps the law). Travis believes the high ground gives him control, and the film shows how little he has.
• Point of view shots. Magnified views through a gunsight implicate the gun, and the viewer, in violence. Moran's camera, which shows the world upside down, suggests the distortion of the colonial perspective and its record of history.
• Language and subtitles. Yolngu language is spoken and subtitled. Grandfather Därrpa speaks in language and Gutjuk translates, placing knowledge and power with the Yolngu characters and inviting the viewer into their perspective.
• Sound. The soundscape emphasises the natural world, especially birds, and includes songs in language and the yidaki. Disruptions of the natural soundscape warn of danger.
• Handheld camera and close-ups. These create intimacy with characters, especially Gutjuk and his grandfather in the negotiation scene.
• The ending. The absurd, escalating pile-up of shootings mirrors the opening massacre, suggesting violence repeating itself, before the final image of Gutjuk and Gulwirri riding away offers another future.

Key characters

• Gutjuk (Tommy). A survivor of the massacre who has grown up between two worlds, outwardly compliant at the mission while holding onto his family and culture. His coming of age takes him from innocence to disillusionment, and to a choice between revenge and the law of his elders.
• Travis. A skilled, guilt-stricken veteran who wants to atone and to protect Gutjuk, but whose attempts at control keep failing. He is a sympathetic figure whose good intentions do not undo his part in colonial violence.
• Baywara. Gutjuk's uncle, turned by trauma into a warrior bent on revenge against the settlers. His path is the one Gutjuk is tempted by.
• Grandfather Därrpa. A Yolngu elder who represents law, continuity and the possibility of makarrata. He chooses Gutjuk to speak for his people.
• Gulwirri. A young Yolngu woman, fierce and wounded, with good reason for her anger. She leaves with Gutjuk at the end.
• Moran. The commanding officer who represents colonial authority. He wants control and a result, and will not negotiate as an equal.
• Eddy. Travis's former army spotter, openly racist and violent, embodying the brutality of the colonial frontier.
• Claire. The missionary who raised Gutjuk and learned Yolngu language, but who is part of the colonial project that took him from his culture. She is forced into violence at the end.
• Walter. An Aboriginal man of mixed descent whom Moran sends with Eddy, caught between worlds in a different way from Gutjuk.

Ideas, concerns and values, and how they are built

Colonial violence

The film opens with a massacre and ends with a bloodbath, and the parallel structure suggests that violence breeds violence. The massacre is presented from the Yolngu side of the waterhole, not from the rifle.

Revenge and justice

Baywara seeks revenge, the colonial authorities seek punishment, Travis seeks atonement and Grandfather Därrpa seeks justice through law and negotiation. A 2025 VCAA topic asked to what extent revenge is a form of justice in the film. Consider whose justice each character pursues, and whether any is achieved.

Control

Moran's camera and command, Travis's rifle and plans, the mission's renaming of Gutjuk: each is an attempt to control people and land. A 2024 VCAA topic proposed that a desire for control is the most important factor in decision-making in the film.

Truth and perspective

Who tells the story matters. Moran's photographs create a colonial record, Gutjuk learns the truth about Travis late, and the film itself tells a story long silenced. The 2024 VCAA report quoted a topic asking how Johnson explores different perceptions of truth.

Resilience of culture

Despite the massacre and the mission, Yolngu language, law, family and connection to Country endure in Gutjuk, Grandfather Därrpa and Gulwirri. A 2025 VCAA topic proposed that the film celebrates the resilience of Indigenous cultures despite colonisation.

Guilt and atonement

Travis's arc raises the question of whether an individual settler can atone for collective violence, and what reconciliation would actually require.

Key scenes and why they matter

1. The waterhole massacre (1919). The violence that shapes every character, and the film's statement of what it is about.
2. Travis takes Gutjuk to the mission. An act of mercy that is also a separation from family and culture.
3. Twelve years later: Gutjuk as Tommy. Mission clothes and a new name over a hidden identity.
4. Moran recruits Travis. Colonial authority draws the reluctant veteran back to the frontier.
5. The journey on Country. Gutjuk's skills and knowledge shift the balance of power between him and Travis.
6. The makarrata negotiation. Grandfather Därrpa speaks, Gutjuk translates, Moran refuses. The film's clearest image of a missed opportunity for peace.
7. Travis shoots Baywara; Gutjuk learns the truth. Loyalty and trust collapse into violence.
8. The final confrontation and the ride away. A repetition of the massacre, then an image of a different future.

How VCAA frames topics on this text

VCAA's 2024 and 2025 exam reports describe three topic types: a proposition followed by Discuss, Do you agree? or To what extent do you agree?; a quotation from the text followed by a proposition or question; and a direct question. Each text gets two narrow topics about specific ideas and values.

The 2024 report used High Ground topics as examples: one proposed that a desire for control is the most important factor in decision-making in the film; another asked how Johnson explores different perceptions of truth, and the report pointed to the connotations of "perceptions" as an implication to unpack. In 2025, one topic proposed that the film celebrates the resilience of Indigenous cultures despite colonisation, and the other asked to what extent revenge is a form of justice. Expect topics on violence, revenge and justice, control, truth, culture and Country, guilt, and the possibility of reconciliation.

For a film, your evidence is scenes, dialogue and named film techniques. Explain what each technique makes the viewer think or feel.

Practice topics (original, not from VCAA)

These are practice topics written for this page in the VCAA style. They are not past exam topics.

1. In High Ground, good intentions are not enough to overcome the violence of colonisation. Discuss.
2. How does Johnson use landscape to shape the meaning of High Ground?
3. High Ground suggests that the law of Country is stronger than the law of the colonisers. To what extent do you agree?
4. Gutjuk's greatest challenge is choosing between two worlds. Do you agree?
5. In High Ground, violence only creates more violence. Discuss.

Planning example

Topic (practice)

In High Ground, good intentions are not enough to overcome the violence of colonisation. Discuss.

Contention

Johnson gives several characters good intentions (Travis's wish to atone, Claire's care for Gutjuk, Grandfather Därrpa's pursuit of makarrata), but shows that intentions fail when the colonial system refuses to share power; only Yolngu law and continuity offer a path beyond the violence.

Paragraph 1: Travis's atonement fails

Analyse the opening massacre and Travis's position on the high ground, then his attempts to control the hunt for Baywara. His rifle and plans end in more killing, including his shooting of Baywara.

Paragraph 2: Claire's care is part of the harm

The mission renames Gutjuk and separates him from his culture. Analyse the mise-en-scene of the mission and the final scene where Claire is forced into violence.

Paragraph 3: makarrata refused

In the negotiation scene, Grandfather Därrpa and Gutjuk offer a way forward. Analyse the subtitles, close-ups and Moran's refusal as the film's clearest statement that good intentions need structural change.

Paragraph 4: what endures

The drone shots of Country and the final ride away suggest that Yolngu culture and law outlast colonial violence. Argue that the film locates hope not in settler good intentions but in First Nations resilience.

Conclusion

The film ends where it began, in the rock country, suggesting that the land and its law are the true high ground.

Common pitfalls

• Making Travis the hero. The film centres Gutjuk as much as Travis, and critiques Travis's belief in control.
• Treating the massacre as background. It is the structural and moral foundation of the film.
• Ignoring language and sound. Yolngu language, subtitles and song are key techniques.

Watch the film

High Ground is in copyright, so this page analyses the film without quoting its dialogue. It is rated MA15+ and your school will have a copy. ACMI's free High Ground VCE study guide is a useful companion.

Sources

• VCE English and EAL Text List 2026 and Text List 2027, VCAA.
• VCE English 2025 examination and 2025 examination report, VCAA.
• 2024 VCE English examination report, VCAA.
• High Ground VCE study guide, ACMI.