CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 12/05/08

Big Is Back

By peter clines

The visionary filmmaker behind Moulin Rouge assembles a dream team of award-winning writers to help him tell a romantic tale the size and scope of which hasn't been seen in decades. While it's a cinematic masterpiece, it's somewhat tarnished by the very fact of how well these writers accomplished their goals.

Australia

Screenplay by Baz Luhrmann and Stuart Beattie and Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan
Story by Baz Luhrmann (also directed)

Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) journeys "down under" to check on the sale of her husband's immense cattle ranch, Faraway Downs. At the coastal city of Darwin, however, she's greeted by a rough, unlikable, outback cattleman, known only as the Drover (Hugh Jackman). Arriving at the ranch a few days later, Sarah learns her long-absent husband has been killed and a rival cattle baron has been stealing from her herds. She also finds a young boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters) the Aboriginal ranch hands have been hiding from the authorities, who want to take him away to a mission for "half-caste" children. To save Faraway Downs from bankruptcy, she enlists the Drover to guide thousands of heads of cattle across the Australian wilds to Darwin to earn the military contract to supply beef for the war effort. The journey awakens feelings Sarah never knew she could have for Nullah, for the Drover, and for the primal beauty of this new country. But getting to Darwin and falling in love is only half of this tale…

Horror novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker once wrote that no story ever begins, that there are always threads and elements that reach back before the arbitrary starting point the storyteller has chosen. The same would hold true of endings, that characters carry on past the end mark and continue to have good days, bad days, and adventures both large and small. Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann, along with Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean), Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and Richard Flanagan (The Sound of One Hand Clapping) have crafted a rich, complex story with almost a dozen threads to it. Some lead into others, some stretch across the whole, and some are only hinted at beginning or drawing to a close.

The truth is, Australia hearkens back to a time when movies weren't afraid of their audiences. It's a film made for the big screen and nothing but the big screen (no matter how large your plasma television). The story is long and sprawling, not only going from A to B, but continuing on to C, D, and even giving us a bit of E. It isn't a high-concept soundbite that can be summed up in one line, but an actual story that covers years. It's an epic film in the classic sense of the word, when epic meant the Civil War ruining your plantation or leading the slaves out of Egypt, not just the biggest explosion you've seen since last summer's releases.

At first glance the characters may seem to be quick-and-easy stereotypes that could be labeled the cowboy, the prissy woman, the drunken sidekick, and so on. It quickly becomes apparent, though, these are not the carbon copies but the real deal—well-rounded, believable characters who have depth and nuances. The Drover isn't just out on the plains because he loves them, but because "decent" society won't accept a man who once married an aborigine woman. Sarah desperately wants someone to love but hasn't seen her husband in years and can't have a child. While she finds both in the Drover and Nullah, she also can't hold onto either of them. Even antagonist Carney (Bryan Brown ) looks like a mustache-twirling villain, but reveals himself to be a man of relative honor who's furious to discover the tragic losses the rival ranch has suffered are the work of his son-in-law (David Wenham).

In fact, the biggest problem with Australia is that it does just what it sets out to do. It's a classic, epic film—the kind of film Hollywood doesn't make anymore. And as we all know, there's only one reason studios won't make a movie. The screenplay is the proverbial tree falling in the forest, something filled with thunderous, primal sound that no one ever gets to hear. If you had to point at a specific flaw with Australia, it's that it was made about 40 years too late.

Australia is big, beautiful, and complex, and it doesn't apologize for it in the slightest. Alas, in this modern world most of us have grown used to films that are shot with the DVD release already planned, the HBO contract in place, and the television-friendly edits in mind, and it's a challenge to take in the sheer scope of a film like this one. But it's a challenge we should all rise to, and one you'll kick yourself for later if you don't.

Australia
20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13; 165 min.

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Peter Clines has had a lifelong love affair with the movies. He grew up in New England, where he studied English literature and education, and now lives and writes somewhere in Southern California. If anyone knows exactly where, he would appreciate a few hints.



Australia courtesy 20th Century Fox

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