Lovable Larrikin (Australia (DVD))

Member Name: MALU

Product:	Australia (DVD)
Date:	20/01/09 (324 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: grandiose photography, heartwarming, sentimental story

Disadvantages: neglectable

(film only review)


Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels to Australia at the beginning of World War II to take her husband to task who spends more time on his farm Faraway Downs there than at home in England - philandering in her opinion. When she arrives she finds him dead, however, obviously murdered by an aborigine. She learns that the most powerful cattle baron of Northern Australia steals her cattle with the help of her foreman, they also plan to take over her land. She sacks her disloyal employee but then realises that the only way to avoid financial ruin is to drive her 1,500 cattle to Darwin across hundreds of miles of Outback territory and sell it there.

With whom can she do this - now that there's nobody left to organise the trek? She's able to persuade Drover (Hugh Jackman), who was sent to welcome her and drive her to the farm, to help her do this together with two Aborigine men, an Aborigine woman, a drunk and a mixed-race boy. When they arrive in Darwin, the town is bombed by the Japanese forces.

I'd read a lot about the film and thought it might appeal to me. I've never been to Australia and will never go there, at least not in this life, nevertheless I've recently become a kind of expert on Australia (the country) as I attend a seminar at uni with the title 'Modern Australia, History and Politics' to keep the grey cells active. I'm full of theoretical insight now and I wanted to get some images to match, especially from the Outback where the film is mainly set.

What comes to my mind when I think of Australia is first and foremost the size of the country; how can a director convey this? Lady Ashley asks Drover how long it will take until they'll arrive at the farm and the answer is, "We've been driving on it for two days already." The number of square miles is mentioned but I couldn't get it while watching the film, in a review I read that Faraway Downs has the size of the American state of Maryland. I did some checking and can tell you that Wales and Northern Ireland together have roughly the same size as Maryland. The mind boggles.

And the nature of the Outback! I think I didn't know what 'barren' means until I saw this film, miles and miles of dry grey-brown soil with some meagre plants interrupted by stretches of desert. But the mountain range gave me the creeps, too, I was stiff in my seat when the camera (Cinematography by Mandy Walker) zoomed to the edge of a cliff and into an abyss.

You may think that I mistook Australia for a feature film from National Geographic, I didn't, but I want to stress that I'm satisfied with the landscape angle and got what I expected for the price of my ticket.

I was also curious to see Nicole Kidman who, believe it or not, I had never seen in a film before. As an ardent reader of newspapers and magazines I knew about her, of course, it's hard not to come across her in the gossip sections. What had escaped me, though, was how divided the public opinion is concerning her acting abilities, I learnt this when I checked some reviews. Some people love everything she does, others write, "The most overrated actress ever", " . . . ruins every film", and concerning the film Australia: "Nicole Kidman drifts about like a lost porcelain doll" (TIMESonline).

Well, I think she's perfect in the role of the English aristocrat, yes, she does drift about like a porcelain doll, why not? Before she arrived, she didn't have the foggiest idea what the country would be like and during her first days she has no words for the horrors she encounters, she can only "Ooooh" and "Aaaah" helplessly. It would have been nonsense if director Baz Luhrmann had engaged a gross, earth mother type of actress, wouldn't it? If he had, there would have been no tension between the lady and the stockman Drover.

Drover is a drover (my source tells me that Australians are not known for their originality when it comes to names), in Australian slang he'd be called a larrikin or Ocker, a fair dinkum Aussie bloke, meaning a rough men's man. But he's not completely one-dimensional, he's got an unhappy past that gives him some depth. The more his soft side comes to the surface, the less ladylike and aloof Lady Sarah Ashley becomes.

What can I say about Hugh Jackman, the Sexiest Man Alive in 2008? Well, he is no George Clooney, is he, but when he lathers his half-naked body by the campfire at night and then pours buckets of water over himself, many a female spectator will think that she wouldn't push him from the edge of her bed should he ever appear there. I think he plays Drover convincingly and the chemistry between him and Kidman works.

Now, apart from the vastness of the country, could we see the film as a typical pioneer drama as we know it from the West of the USA? No, Luhrmann has firmly grounded the story in Australia and its history by introducing the problem of the Stolen Generation. Nullah (Brandon Walters), a mixed-race boy living on the farm is in constant fear of being taking away by the police and sent to a Christian missionary institution. Between 1910 and 1970 mixed-race children were forcefully removed from their families under the Aboriginal Protection Act, the idea was to maintain white racial purity by permitting white admixtures to mixed-race people and to thus eventually eradicate all native characteristics by the fifth or sixth generation. This is the darkest chapter in the recent Australian history and what it means to the people concerned comes over well in the film.

Brendon Walters, the boy playing Nullah, irritated me, he's too small for his age. Hugging Nicole Kidman, he reaches her waist, when I saw this, I assumed that he was about eight years old. But he reacts in the way of an older boy, I read that he's 13 years old. The discrepancy between his size and his behaviour puzzled me throughout the film. Wherever Nullah is, his maternal grandfather isn't far away. He's played by David Gulpilil, according to my source the Aborigine actor who's been called for decades whenever an Aborigine has been needed in an Australian film.

He's taught his grandson magic rituals some of which we can see work wonders. They add a mystic, fairy tale element to the story. We shouldn't try to analyse them, but take them at face value. The whole film has a fairy tale element, of course, like all films of this genre. Luhrmann wants to see Australia in a line with Out of Africa and Gone with the Wind. Does anyone ask if these films realistic? They must be over the top, the story, the landscape, the actors, the sentiments must be grandiose, one size bigger than strictly necessary. A certain kind of kitsch and cheesiness goes with the genre. If you know that you can't stand such films, stay away from them, if you know what you're in for, you'll enjoy the spectacle.

I think I've made it clear that I like the film, however, I've given it only four stars. The reason is the soundtrack (music by David Hirschfelder). I'm not interested in music and usually don't notice the soundtrack, if I do it must be extraordinary one way or the other. The bombardment of Darwin at the end of the film is exaggerated, it's an orgy of destruction which goes on too long and seems to take place for its own sake, it doesn't add anything vital to the story. I found this annoying but what nearly hit me out of my seat was the music accompanying the carnage: a choir of shrill women's voices singing (shrieking) for minutes!

This film is deffo not for the small screen, so Mr and Mrs Potato, get off your couch and trot to a cinema where it is playing, but only if you're morally stable. I do love the site IMDb! "Some passionate kissing. A woman is shown in her nightie. **Sex is implied**. " Also, "1 use of the f-word." Don't say afterwards you haven't been warned.

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165 minutes
UK: 12A

Summary: Love story set in the Australian Outback during WW2