Australia
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Rated: M
From Wed 26 Nov


A blockbuster love story which climaxes with the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese at the darkest hour of WWII; could it have come from the mind of anyone other than Baz Luhrmann? Could the pairing of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman been brought about by anyone other (Kidman appears a firm favourite of Luhrmann since appearing in 'Moulin Rouge')?

These are simple enough questions to consider, but the big one - which hangs over 'Australia' like our colonial past - is why this is such a pastiche of so many other famous movies, and why the director sought to make his epic in the mold of so many which have come before? There's no denying it: the promotional poster itself points the viewer directly at 'Gone With The Wind' for inspiration, so it then becomes a simple exercise in summing up whether or not he and the cast succeeded in their quest.

The 'Stolen Generation' becomes a theme of sizeable proportion to 'Australia', and whilst I have no issue with that, I am forced to ask whether it is a political expediency, and whether Luhrmann genuinely sees it as one of his big issues, or whether it is useful as a significant subplot to weave the story together. Because 'Australia' is a movie of considerable size and perhaps only Baz Luhrmann could have the vision to make such a simple idea such a wonderful extended allegory.

Hugh Jackman is the Drover (he has no other name), a man who droves cattle across the Top End, and then sets off to bring home abandoned children of the Stolen Generation, a 'Pied Piper' figure.

Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, an Englishwoman who seems cast adrift in the vastness of the Kimberleys, fighting to save her cattle station, the implausibly named Faraway Downs. From Faraway Downs she must trek her cattle across the Never-Never to Darwin, so the movie becomes a 'quest'. It is the Drover who saves her, of course, when all seems lost. And it must be said, Kidman and Jackman go together brilliantly. David Wenham performs admirably as the villain of the piece, and Ben Mendelsohn- and it may be a personal dislike - manages to ham his way through every scene he's in as the starched Army procurements officer.

Ultimately, it is Nullah, a young half breed ('creamy') boy played by Brandon Walters who drives the whole movie through his wide-eyed belief in simple things, and his love of the motif (a recurring homage to 'The Wizard Of Oz') which gives this film a time and a place for other audiences to relate.

Ultimately also, I realised very late in the piece, Luhrmann and his co-writers owe an enormous debt to the simple humanity of an uncredited Neville Shute, in particular for his redemptive tale 'A Town Like Alice'.

'Australia' really is a wonderfully inventive feel-good movie of magnificent proportion, and Luhrmann pays homage to the era of such movies through his loving appropriation of the time.

Alex Wheaton