THE NEW BOY © New Boy Productions
The New Boy, as seen by Warwick Thornton
For The New Boy, the camera of Warwick Thornton follows the footsteps of an aboriginal boy touched by grace, surrounded by the austerity of a monastery run by a renegade nun. With Samson and Delilah, the winner of the Caméra d’Or in 2009 and presented in Un Certain Regard, the screenwriter and author had already broached the subject of the aboriginal people by featuring two teenagers from the Australian desert.
“The new boy”, a solitary child (Aswan Reid) endowed with exceptional powers, generates fascination after his spiritual encounter with Jesus. However, the inner character of this aboriginal boy is not suited to the Christian values extolled by the monastery. His mysterious power becomes threatening. This story directed by Warwick Thornton unfolds in the 1940s with Australian actress Cate Blanchett in one of the title roles as Sister Eileen, a character caught between her beliefs and the child’s evident gift, and whose deepest values are turned upside-down.
This mystical story evokes the director’s own experience because, at the instigation of his mother, he lived until he was thirteen in one of the only monastic towns in Australia, in the west of the country. In this institution run by Spanish nuns, this adolescent, who had never stepped foot in a church, was profoundly moved by the image of Christ on the cross, an image so different from anything he had known as a child and so removed from the aboriginal spirituality that suffused him. The film’s plot revolves around this profound question: can two spiritualities so opposed be reconciled? Written by the writer-director 18 years ago, the screenplay for The New Boy has haunted him ever since.
