AUSTRALIA (2008) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Baz Luhrmann
Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Brandon Walters,
David Wenham, David Gulpilil, Bryan Brown,
Jack Thompson, Bill Hunter, Bruce Spence
Baz Luhrmann's dazzling, romantic, go-for-broke epic starts out in 1939. Nicole Kidman plays an Englishwoman who travels Down Under to sell a ranch she owns there, and instead finds herself going native (in a ladylike way, of course), embarking on a cattle drive and falling for a cowboy played by Hugh Jackman. There are bad guys (David Wenham and Bryan Brown), and the Japanese are getting ready to bomb Darwin, and it's all told through the eyes and voiceover narration of a half-caste boy whose grandfather (David Gulpilil) materializes and vanishes seemingly at will, an outback apparition, watching, beckoning and sometimes showing the way. Luhrmann's most conspicuous references (no accident) are "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz". He loves the romance and artifice of old movies, and he knows the conventions and cliches well enough to take narrative shortcuts more conservative (or less shameless) filmmakers wouldn't attempt. There might not be much depth to it, or maybe there is. (Keep an eye on Gulpilil as the old Aborigine King George, and see what you think.) And it seems fair to ask why the boy's mother has to be killed off for the rich white woman to show how much she loves this brown-skinned child. There's a giddy transparency to Luhrmann's movies that leaves you with a choice going in. You either surrender to them or you don't. One thing's for sure. He doesn't leave anything at home. Whatever he knows how to do with film, it all ends up on the screen. Better surrender, I'd say.
Bill Hunter
(1940-2011)
