Andrew McMurtryREVIEW: Australia (2008)
December 9th 2008 13:53
The new Baz Luhrmann film “Australia” is a brilliant film. It has everything an epic needs; it has includes several different genres such as romance, western, action and war broken up by dry Aussie humour. The acting is brilliant. The cinematography is brilliant and beautiful. Overall it is a great film. Australia is a great backdrop to any film but this story, a fairly unique Australian story, makes great use of it.
The acting in this film really makes it great. The all-Australian cast really add some authenticity to the film. Nicole Kidman, who has seemed to be slammed in the past because of her performances, really steps it up. This is probably the best role she has done in a long time. Hugh Jackman is solid but in saying that, Hugh Jackman is one of the Australia’s great acting exports. David Wenham is slimy and evil as the villain; he really shows what a great actor he is and what great acting range he has. There are many other great Australian actors who appear in the movie such as Bryan Brown, John Jarrett, Jack Thompson and David Gulpilil just to name a few. But the actor who I found as a standout was Brandon Walters. He was confident and a great presence in the film. For such a young boy in such a huge film, he was brilliant. He should be strongly considered for an Oscar. The greatest feature of this film was the natural beauty of the Australian Outback. The sweeping dry plains of the Northern Territory were magnificently vast and empty until the rain season hit. The rain brought a transformation into a lush paradise. The one confusing thing about this film was that there were parts of the film when Luhrmann adopted a montage sequence when there didn’t really need to be one. The montages generally just looked at the various natural scenes but didn’t add to the coherency of the film. It was nice to look at parts of Australia that many Australian’s wouldn’t have seen though.
I also liked the story. The film begins with Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) in England, accusing her husband, who is overseas in Australia at the cattle farm which they own. She sets off to Australia despite the imminent threat of war which is hanging over the world. When she arrives, she discovers her husband has been killed. From there it becomes apparent that she has to drove the 1500 head of cattle from the farm to Darwin, where they will be used by the army. The first section of the film is the travelling to the farm itself. This is where the Drover (Hugh Jackman) and Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman) meet. Their relationship begins in with mutual disdain. But as they move on through the second part of the film, the drove through the Outback, their love begins to blossom. The most enjoyable aspect of this film was how they intertwined the “Hollywood” romance with history. The classic, even forbidden, at least looked down on, love between the Drover and Lady Ashley is a good way to show the class structured society of Australia as the upper class are shocked when met with the low class Drover, who is disrespected as he is friends with Aborigines.
One of the themes which I felt was the most important and was surprised by was the racism of Australia. The assimilation and white Australia policies which were in effect in Australia over during the World War 2 are actually looked at. The most obvious point in the film when the racism is shown is after the bombing, when Ivan, an obviously recent immigrant, won’t allow an Aboriginal man into his pub, even though the pub has no walls. This spoke to me and reminded me how ugly racism is and how, although Australia has come a long way since that time, there is still so much racism to be found in Australia.
“Australia” is a great film. It is well shot, it is well directed and if the only thing stopping you from watching it is Baz Luhrmann as director, go and see it. It really is a ride through all your emotions. It is the best movie I have seen in quite a while. There were some things I didn’t like. The continuity wasn’t always right, I felt like three scenes were out of order, there were some very cliché parts of the film and some things I was curious about weren’t explained very well, but for a ride of a truly great movie, I’ll put up with a few things that I didn’t really like for a complete film experience. I'll give this film 4.5 out of 5.
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