Angie Milliken as Kate in Dead Heart (1996)

In a small, divided community near Alice Springs, frisky young Tony (Aaron Pedersen) makes love to unhappily married Kate (Angie Milliken) on a sacred, tribal site meant for men only. This act of inter-racial sex – blows the town sky high.


Wala Wala is a tiny community west of Alice Springs. White Australians refer to this barren red landscape as the country’s “dead heart,” but for aborigines this is a rich and spiritual place. Wala Wala, which consists of a school, church, police station (with jail) and a handful of brick huts, is the focal point for nomadic tribal aborigines from a wide area of this desert region and, although times are changing, traditions are still of vital importance.

Ray Lorkin (Bryan Brown) is a cop who represents white Australia’s law and order in this incredibly remote spot. He has always tried to bend the rules, and is basically a fair-minded man who works well with his aboriginal assistant, Billy.

The only other whites are teacher Les (Lewis Fitz-Gerald), his bored wife Kate (Angie Milliken) and their two children, Charlie (John Jarratt), an anthropologist. Prominent members of the aboriginal community are David, the local pastor, who is friendly with Ray Tony (Aaron Pedersen), a rebellious young man who earns money smuggling illegal alcohol into the community.

The yarn, which is told in a framing story by Poppy to a pair of tribal men, involves a prisoner’s fatal hanging in Lorkin’s police cell. Tradition demands that revenge be taken.

Meanwhile, Tony and Kate are secretly having a passionate affair, and in a moment of foolish bravado, Tony selects, as the latest location for their liaison, an area sacred to members of his tribe. This seals his fate, and it’s Kate who discovers his dead but unmarked body.

Lorkin is convinced that Tony’s death is murder, and is determined the perpetrators shall be punished. But events take an unexpected turn, leading to a gripping climax.

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