"Australia" (2008)

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

There's an old saying about telling stories on film, something like "a couple cliches in a movie can make you groan, but a hundred well-placed cliches will make you cry." Although I didn't tear up watching this movie, I found it very entertaining despite the fact I'm sure many who see it will not give it a big thumbs up for originality of story line.




The lack of stunning surprises was okay by me, because "Australia" has the charm of being an old-school style Hollywood movie like "Out of Africa" (1985), "Red River"(1948) or "From Here to Eternity"(1954), which are a rare find when done well these days. The movie never tries to be anything but what it is--an old-school cinematic essay on two good-looking people falling in love, and how disparate individuals of different cultures can at times transcend the bigotry and malice that surrounds them. No heavy messages here.

Director Baz Luhrmann (who also co-wrote the screenplay and produced the film) throws in some gorgeous scenery helped by computer generated imagery, good action scenes, and some hard-driven bad guys. Now just add one very spry old and wise shaman Aboriginal who shows up when necessary to remind us who was in Australia first and understands it better than the white folks, and you have a entertaining movie.
Nicole Kidman plays a character called Lady Ashley. She's an uptight British aristocrat with long legs and a lot of luggage. The War in Europe is starting (it's 1939) but Mrs. Ashley's biggest problem is she apparently mislaid her husband. Seems this genius forgot all about his "looker" of a wife and is biding his time at a cattle station Down Under in the Northern Territories. "Don't come out here," he tells her. She comes out anyway, flying into the port town of Darwin where she discovers she ain't amongst polite society anymore.
Hugh Jackman is the guy who drives her from Darwin to the distant cattle station. He plays a character who's usually just referred to as "The Drover", a cattle-puncher/trail boss. He sets about showing her how different the world operates on a frontier---a terrain that looks remarkably like the American Southwest of Arizona and New Mexico.

On the long truck ride inland, she gets taken down a peg or two by the rustic customs and salt-of-the-earth attitude of The Drover. She gives as good as she gets in the insult department. Pretty soon Miss Tea-and-Crumpets and The Drover can't stand each other. He actually says, "I wouldn't fancy you if you were the last tart left in Australia!" If you ever seen more than a half-dozen movies in your life, you know these two strong-willed and attractive people are going to fall like a ton of bricks over each other. All it takes is for Mr. Ashley to get conveniently murdered, apparently by that aged and wise Aborigine. Seems "King George" doesn't want his half-caste grandson Nullah carted off by a racist policeman to a government school or a church-run mission so the poor lad can learn to be white enough to forget his mother and his maternal lineage.

It looks like the natives are restless, but all is not what it appears (as you might expect.)


The best thing about "Australia" is that it is two movies interlaced nicely into one slightly long (160 minute) movie. The first part is a well-paced American Western where the undermanned (and womanned) Ashley cattle station crew from "Faraway Downs" tries to get hundreds of cattle across the desert to Darwin and into big British ships. The nemesis here is a big-time cattle baron named Carney who must own every square mile in the Territories but "Faraway Downs". King Carney wants to monopolize the pending British Army contract for Aussie beef. The cattle king is played with relish by Bryan Brown.

The scenes involving the huge cattle drive and the attempts at sabotage by King's men feature great camera work and vistas of wide open spaces. Human activity seems small against such a panoramic backdrop and one is reminded of the desert grandeur David Lean achieved in "Lawrence of Arabia" and also John Ford's "cavalry" movies like "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon", shot in Monument Valley, Arizona.

The second part of the film deals with the authorities taking away the half-caste child (Nullah, played by Brandon Walters) by force from Lady Ashley; the Drover going off into the bush after a romantic tiff , and then a rousing finish as all three deal with the attack on Darwin by the Japanese Naval Air Forces. This part is the most authentic and unique to Australia and, while not as good as the first half, brings forth a satisfying emotional climax to the proceedings.

Cast (from Wikipedia)
Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley
Hugh Jackman as an (unnamed) Australian drover
David Wenham as Neil Fletcher
Jack Thompson as Kipling Flynn
Bryan Brown as King Carney
Brandon Walters as the drover's assistant Nullah
David Gulpilil as King George, a magic tribal elder