Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Brandon Walters

Director: Baz Lhurmann

Screenplay: Baz Lhurmann

Running time: 3 hrs

Genre: Romance/Western/Drama



CRITIQUE:

Critics has been slating the romance epic Australia as “derivate”, “overblown, overwrought, and over-sentimental", and given the poor box-office performance across the pond, apparently it’s not what America desired. And not to mention the length of three hours, a bummer in which mainstream audience would fidget in their seats watching kangaroos, cattle, Ayers rocks, Aussie fisticuffs and aborigines. It also self-righteously defies categorisation, leaping from one genre to another, starting as fish-out-of-water comedy, then Western, then romance, blending drama, action, folklore, racial commentary, and war film – a high-flyer of a pastiche that might prove Baz Lhurmann as plain, pure mental.


Except that he is not. The visionary, who revolutionised Shakespearean ethos into post-punk-rock generation of Romeo + Juliet, and took a postmodernist approach on musicals by an attack of the sight-and-sound senses, his arguable masterpiece Moulin Rouge!, has returned back to his home country whilst nodding to the good old epics of the Hollywood golden age. Derivative it might be, it is saddled with Gone with the Wind comparisons via Out of Africa, but it surprisingly stands on its own, in fact, a tale centred on the Stolen Generations. Anyone complaining about its being “overblown, overwrought” and “too-long” should literally recheck Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia and Wizard of Oz – aren’t these films overblown, overwrought and a tad too sore for the bum cheeks? It is obvious that the generation of High School Musical tweens and sad, sorry, sentimental Twilight campers wouldn’t comprehend the crucial ethos of Australia: it is harking back to the dying breed of epic filmmaking, where vistas play important roles as its characters, in the panoramas of David Lean, David O. Selznick and Cecil B. DeMille. If that in understood before watching the film, then you’ll be swept away into a time and place filled with ravishing romance and adventure in this hugely entertaining, wondrously sweeping, who-cares-what-the-heck film. It is grand in staggering scale, ambitious, and works as a reminder that sometimes a dose of romanticism is OK, and that this kind of filmmaking should be revived and reinvigorated.


Clichés are everywhere in Australia, but this writer wonders how would it fare to the cinema if it was made in the 40s? The point is not originality but the homage to the great Westerns, gone but not forgotten. The seven riders in the cattle-drove in a nifty nod to The Magnificent Seven, and if there’s anything innovative in this element, it’s that heart-in-the-mouth cattle stampede sequence, leading to the death cliff. It’s a colossal setpiece blending suspense, action and mysticism that’s worth the entrance alone.


And what a scenery Australia is. Every shot is a glorious palette, the framing is impeccable, even the colouring of sunsets reminds us of the plantation horizons of Gone with the Wind. The tale is formulaic, English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley travels to the land down under to save his husband’s cattle farm only to discover him dead, and then falls in love, although with bickering and a dead kangaroo along the way, with the rough-hewn Drover. She imposes as prim and proper, cold and officious, only to be melted with by the Drover’s heart of gold. There is even a point where Mrs Boss and Drover separates, leaving conflicts unsolved, a stark rendition of Scarlett and Rhett.


But that’s where the comparisons end. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman deliver performances that contest the beauty of their backdrops. Kidman transforms from a naive foreigner to a feisty heroine who harbours maternal love to the half-blood aboriginal boy Nullah. This is a turn we rarely see from this actress, like Moulin Rouge!, it showcases her comedic timing wonderfully played in the brassiere outburst scene in the beginning. The Drover lets us see the leading man making of Jackman, and he is unforgettable in the role. But the two lovers set in the conflict of the booming World War II are merely backdrop in the story of Nullah (a stunning performance by Australian wonder discovery Brandon Walters), who narrates his story. Here, Lhurmann’s gives an affecting love-letter to the aborigines of Australia, the real inhabitants of the distant land, in their search for identity. Somehow, the nod to Wizard of Oz’s score is appropriate: Australia is the magical Oz, and it is a land “somewhere over the rainbow.” Reality is heightened, if not stylised, and that is just part of its aesthetic. As one critic deftly puts it, Australia is an “ode to a place (exotic to some, familiar to others), yes, but more than that, Australia is state of mind: wonderment, grandeur, beauty, love, escape, hope.”



VERDICT:

The most misunderstood film of 2008. Australia is a ravishingly beautiful panorama with an astonishing scope and radiant performances. This is Lhurmann’s homage to the dying breed of Westerns and the Golden Age epic filmmaking. The problem is not the movie, but the mainstream audience, who are mostly cynical at this day and age. It may not be a classic - but it's a damn good film.



RATING: A+