Australia - A Review
Australia is a magnificent production. It is part adventure, part western, part war movie, and part romance, but what it really wants to be is a certain 1939 Hollywood epic. In everything from the title screen, to the painted backdrops, to the performances, and a familiar song that wafts its way through the score, the film seeks to recall the golden age of Hollywood cinema.
Australia is the story of Nullah, a small boy of mixed white and aboriginal blood; Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), an aristocratic English woman; and a surly cattle driver known only as, ‘The Drover’ (Hugh Jackman). Their fates intertwine around a northern Australian cattle ranch owned by Lady Ashley, who has recently arrived down under to discover that her husband is dead and her manager is siphoning off cattle to her biggest (and only) rival. Nullah, who is instrumental in uncovering this scheme and newly orphaned, remains in constant danger because of a law demanding the institutionalization of all mixed-race children. Hesitantly at first Lady Ashley takes Nullah under her wing and appeals for help to The Drover, who was hired to drive their cattle to the coast before the death of her husband. Left with little option so late in the season he assembles his rag-tag gang and begins the drove. They become a sort of family as they brave the cattle drove and the outbreak of World War II together. The plot is driven by their unlikely union and desire to stay together as Aboriginal, English, and Outback cultures collide.
Director Baz Luhrmann is a master of conception (an NPR commentator tells me he loves excess) who has previously made such films as Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!. Australia is his 1930’s romantic epic. Like Peter Jackson’s remake of 1933’s King Kong, a sense of painted backdrops and green screens that modern filmmaking has surpassed is retained to recall a bygone era. Bluffs, cities, skylines, harbors, and islands all seem like murals and backdrops. Even if scenes were shot on location, they want it to feel like the back-lot. The colors are saturated, polarized, and washed to recall the glory of Technicolor, and soft focus restores silver screen glamour to night time dances.
These nostalgic elements scream ‘grandeur’ and ‘romance,’ but there is a hollowness in the performances that cannot support the scope of the vision. It is not that Jackman and Kidman do anything poorly. I thought they were rather good. All native Australians, the cast lends authenticity to the backdrops. The problem is that against a painted background the characters must stand out with vitality and depth. This has to be done with gravitas–something in the eyes and stance–a force of character that goes beyond acting. Australia doesn’t need better performances, it needs something that may have been impossible – it needs a Katherine Hepburn, a Gary Cooper.
The actors were not helped any by a sloppy script. The story itself has the raw ingredients to be very moving, even if they are a little familiar. But the writing has a short attention span and flies through three acts, incidentally failing to create deep, rounded characters. Instead they remain a little too stereotyped to the end.
I would have liked to see many of the scenes that the film foreshadowed actually play out with a steady hand and a little poise. At the Drover’s introduction such attention was called to the fact that he goes only by ‘The Drover,’ that when I look back and realize we never learned a shred of back story about him, and that Lady Ashley never learned his real name as their love grew, I am a little disappointed. This kind of development could have made the script richer and the drama deeper. Instead I felt that the whole film was rushed. Luhrmann’s active camera and editing turned several scenes that should have played out gradually into a jilting staccato. If you want to create great drama and romance, you have to have confidence to pause at crucial points, let some quiet in, and unfold things slowly.
Yet any fan of cinema and adventure will enjoy Australia. There is spectacle, there is deception, action, and romance. Australia is a grand and exotic backdrop for this type of story. The film moves quickly, and the 2-hour 45-minute run-time flies by. Baz Luhrmann has a flair for the comedic and a penchant for movement. Australia is anything but dull, although it often fails to be compelling.
It may not be completely fair to compare Australia with films that have survived almost 70 years, but its imitations beg the comparison. These films have survived because of their absorbing storytelling, legendary performances, and larger-than-life characters. The visuals are arresting, the vision is bold, but these things cannot be the backbone. Australia pays homage more than it stands on its own two feet.
I think I see what’s goin’ on here…
