November 30, 2008

• Australia: An ElectricMovies film review

  

  A Movie as Big as all Oz.

  “Welcome to Australia”.

  Some movies are eye candy that fade quickly from memory. Others are movies that matter. Some of the movies that matter receive big box office and dozens of awards. Some entice and then seem to go into obscurity. It amazes me these days when I actually see a quality film which deepens my sense of not only film history but world history.

  Very rarely in modern cinema is there a chance for an actual enlightening as well as entertaining experience. The best films not only immerse the audience in a different world, populated by interesting people, and take them on a journey not possible in most of our lives, but the best films cause us as humans to care deeply about the human condition, sometimes making our own lives the better for the experience.

  Director Baz Lurhmann is in love with the movies, but has only directed four of them in his fifteen year career. One of them, the energetic and eye popping musical  “Moulin Rouge”, was my pick for Best Picture back in 2001. It didn’t win, and I felt as if the film industry was given a slap in the face by this gross oversight. Baz has not only a sense of film history, his movies will live in the future pantheon of film history as movies that matter, and his latest , although not raking in the “numbers” this holiday season, will be loved and respected for many decades to come. “Moulin Rouge” was ahead of it’s time, and his latest, “Australia” is a throwback to the grand sweeping epics of yesteryear, infused with a referential love for those masterful movies, and yet exciting and awe inspiring on it’s own.

  I’ve read reviews which, while acknowledging Luhrmann’s artistic achievement, quibble with stylistic decisions, and in toto seem to be telling the potential moviegoer that this film doesn’t live up to it’s promise. These quibbles are meaningless. Anyone can find fault with anything if one looks hard enough. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this film for a long time now, and I caught it Saturday afternoon at a $6.00 matinee at the local AMC multiplex. There were only about 30-40 of us in the auditorium, and after the movie ended, this audience awarded the experience with spontaneous and vigorous applause, something I do not see at all anymore in my movie going experience.

  “Australia” is rousing entertainment, filled with solid acting. It is also an excellent history lesson, teaching tolerance and understanding. It is epic, grand, romantic, and beautiful to look at. I haven’t seen a movie in a theater in a long time, and  I can’t wait to see this one again. Not since “Titanic” have I been so in love with a moviegoing experience. There are only ten points on the Mikometer, but “Australia” deserves 11!

  I’ll admit outright that I’m a fan of the director. Baz’s films are valentines to the movies, utilizing elements both old and new in a wild mixture of awe inspiring moviemaking. He uses computer graphics to not only dazzle the audience but as an adjunct to the storytelling, and the best CGI sequences in “Australia” serve the stroy very well. Luhrmann’s usage of music in his films has more in common with old time Hollywood, in the days when movie music, rather than pop radio, set the cultural trends. Even the pop standards used in “Moulin Rouge” were chosen for their relevance to the story arc, and Baz echoes his pick of a grand theme song, like “The Sound of Music” in “Rouge”, with “Over the Rainbow” from the 1938 MGM musical “The Wizard of Oz”, which resonates on even more levels than just the musical.

  “Australia” runs almost three hours, but the time didn’t seem long to this reviewer. The plot, set right before and during the beginning of World War II encompasses a romance set amongst a both a cattle drive and a World War II battle.  Nicole Kidman stars as Lady Sarah Ashley, an aristocratic Englishwoman who arrives in 1939 at her husband’s cattle ranch, Faraway Downs, located on the north tip of the continent, just in time for his untimely murder. Narrated by the stunningly beautiful aborigine child actor Brandon Walters in his first film, “Australia” tells the tale of how Lady Ashley, with the help of “The Drover”, played by aussie actor Hugh Jackman from the X Men films (who is also People’s Sexiest Man Alive this year) and a ragtag group including an alcoholic accountant (Jack Thompson) the young narrator, and her chinese cook manage to “drove” a large herd of cattle from their ranch to Darwin, and are then involved in the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces in the early days of the war.

  Audiences not familiar with Baz Luhrmann’s excesses might not realize that his style is almost muted this time out, emphasized by the color palatte of the film. Instead of the bright colors and manic energy of “Romeo+Juliet” or “Rouge”, “Australia” is full of muted browns and long passages of reflection. Although there are elements of Baz’s comic sensibilities, including a rather slapsticky first third, and the importance of music, these elements blend very nicely with the overall grandeur of the tale.

  The plight of Australia’s “stolen generations”, who met a fate similar to the American Indian children who were torn from their homes and sent to “schools” to “civilize” them and breed out their indigenous heritage, plays a major role in “Australia”, but is not overbearing. Nullah, our narrator, is preparing to go “on walkabout” with his grandfather, King George, (David Gulphil, from the 1971 Nicolas Roeg film Walkabout and familiar from 2002′s Rabbit Proof Fence and from Crocodile Dundee. ) at the beginning of the proceedings. His story becomes the continent’s story, meshed with the true romance of Lady Ashley and the Drover.

  I won’t see too many films in a theater these days, and my home system is pretty spectacular, but there is nothing better for me than to see a grand entertainment like this in a theater with an audience. Especially one which applauds at the end. I will shed tears during particularly emotional scenes from films, and I will admit to having a good cry at a lot of movies, but this cry usually happens only once during a good film. I seemed to be wiping my eyes continuously during “Australia”.

  “They don’t make them like they used to” is a phrase oft repeated in film criticism. “Australia” comes close to not only providing “old time” entertainment and values, with a bit of social message thrown in, but supersedes the ability of old time Hollywood to present a film with this much grandeur and scale. The movie is as much an ode to Baz’s influences. The classic western “Red River” is filmically referenced, as is George Steven’s “Giant” not only with the cattle ranch setting, but with the racial elements of the story. Luhrmann has already said in interviews that this is Australia’s “Gone With the Wind”. The other old movie referenced is of course “The Wizard of Oz”. It’s fitting that “Over the Rainbow” and “There’s no place like home” play such a vital part in “Australia’s” storyline and themes. Australia is of course frequently called “Oz”, and the continent is Luhrmann’s home.

  Acting accolades can be given to the complete cast. Gulpilil is majestic as “King George”. Kidman is achingly beautiful. Jackman has the best role of his career so far, and evokes such giants as Gary Cooper and John Wayne. Newcomer Walters is emotive and rambunctious. The villians, Bryan Brown as catlle baron “King Carney” and the evil manager Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) are deliciously villanous, with a human center.

  Cinematography is lusciously essayed by Mandy Walker. 20th Century Fox can be congratulated on taking a chance producing this lavish wonder. It might be just another weekend at the box office, and “Australia” will not be number one, but hopefully through word of mouth this film will get the audience it deserves, and of course, there is always the DVD. But take it from me, who rarely sees films ”on the big screen” anymore. This one was fully worth it, and I hope it stays in theaters for a long time, and maybe even gets the nomination, and perhaps the Academy Award, for “Best Picture of the Year”.  

  OFFICIAL WEBSITE.

  IMDB entry for “Australia”, Wikipedia entry for “Australia” ,

  • 12:27 pm
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