Hey, pass me a Vegemite sandwich.
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Notable Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Brandon Walters, David Wenham, and Bryan Brown
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Just look at a Tarantino movie. You may not recognize all the film references but some you will. Australia is similar in that respect, and thus it is difficult to gauge. Lovers of film, particularly 1930s costumed epics, could pick out the films that have inspired director Baz Luhrmann’s latest. Homages are incorporated into the feature, a story that is many things, but ultimately doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Lurhmann was in the midst of planning the supposed epic while Moulin Rouge! was wrapping production; it would be another four years before the first round of casting could be completed. Nicole Kidman, who gained a Best Actress nomination for Luhrmann’s visually stunning Rouge!, was the first actor attached to star. Russell Crowe was to be the male lead but personal demands got in the way. A year later, Hugh Jackman signed.
With production conflicts and actors dropping out, Australia could easily have been a Heaven’s Gate 2.0. Rest assured, it is not. But the tonal shifts in the film derail any attempt to be the second coming of Titanic.
The year is 1939. The Nazis have invaded Poland and are widening out its stranglehold of Eastern Europe. In land of the free, the Australian army is hungry. The soldiers need beef. “It’s what’s for dinner,” as the jingle goes.
Nicole Kidman, looking very regal as the English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley, hears reports that her husband has been handling more than just cattle at his ranch, Faraway Downs, in Northern Australia. So she leaves her pampered lifestyle of tea and gossip talk only to find him murdered. Now a widow, she is the inheritor of Faraway Downs with nary a clue of how to run such an operation. Luckily she can turn her frown to a long, strapping fella, whose name is his profession, for help: Drover (Hugh Jackman).
Drover drives the cattle of Faraway Downs with assistance from Aborigine ranch hands. One of the hands is but an eleven-year-old boy named Nullah (newcomer Brandon Walters). In the written text of the movie’s preface, Aboriginal children, who were part-white, were taken from their families by governmental agencies and church missions as part of parliamentary edicts, were known as the “Stolen generation.” It is an underlining story in a film that features a bit of everything. A rousing cattle stampede, nuances of a David O. Selznick production, infused genres of romance, war, and western. Whew!
However, even with all the elements of classic cinema, faults proliferate this two hour and 40 minute feature. Epic in scope, the story is simplistic, feeling like a fable. Which was probably Luhrmann’s intent, as he has Kidman’s character tells Nullah a bedtime story. Stumped, she peers down at a paper with “The Wizard of Oz” on the cover.
Repeated renditions of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” are sung and played by means of a harmonica, and again it makes Australia out to be a majestic land of surrealism and whimsy; and almost makes you forget about the seriousness of race issues.
Another offense is the passage of the time, the film stretching from 1939 to late 1941. During the cattle drive, Lady Ashley, Drover and the rest of the gang attempt to make up some time by passing through the “Never Never,” a deadly stretch of land that is unfit to cross. But pass it they do. Yet the experience is unfulfilling as Luhrmann speeds up the trek only to have the cattle reach its destination unscathed. Dang it, I wanted to see what happened out there.
At the start I wrote that Australia was a tough film to gauge. It still is. While I applaud Luhrmann for trying the recreate the dazzling spectacle and melodrama appeal of the likes of Gone with the Wind, it’s hard to overlook its narrative flaws. It honestly feels like two different movies thrown together by different filmmakers, and could have easily been a made-for-TV mini-series only without the massive $130 million budget. But it’s hard to ignore such scenes as the cattle stampede, the kiss in the rain, and Japanese bombing the town of Darwin.
I say hold out for the eventual Blu-ray release and cherish the moment you can hit pause and explore Australia at your own pace.
FINAL RATING (ON A SCALE OF 1-5 BUCKETS):
