FilmJudge - Australia

REVIEW

Australia
2008
Certificate: 12 | Runtime: 165 | Director: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham

Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) travels from England to Australia to help her husband run their family cattle business. But when she arrives she discovers that he was murdered in the outback, and has little choice but to run the business herself. She enlists the help of Drover (Jackman), with the intention of driving the cattle to Darwin to sell to the army. But she makes an enemy out of employee Fletcher (Wenham), who joins the competition. Moreover, the arrival of Nullah (Brandon Walters), a young boy with both white and Aborigine heritage, brings to Sarah's attention the racial tensions that exist in Australia. And with Japan poised ready to attack Australia, all this is happening against a very dangerous backdrop.

As you can see from that opening paragraph there is a lot going on in Australia; so much so in fact, that the film ends up drowning in excess. It is a film which should stimulate, move and excite, but because it tries to say and do so much the substance of it all gets lost. And this results in a film which isn't just frustrating, but one which is tiresome, languid and really quite a chore to sit through.

From the outset it is difficult to ascertain the precise tone of Australia, or how its various plot strings will eventually come together. It begins in a jokey tone, which reminded me somewhat of the first third of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; the interplay between Drover and Sarah in particular. It then does a sort of Out of Africa thing as Sarah comes to love her new country, while simultaneously trying to engage us with a trek across the outback. And while all this is going on there's a building sense that WWII is going to become more of an issue, and at the same time we are confronted with the harsh reality of being a child in Nullah's situation. Essentially, the Australian government wanted to 'breed' the Aborigine out of these children within three generations.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a film wanting to have its finger in so many pies; the problem is when it doesn't do it well. And, unfortunately, Australia falls into that trap. While Kidman and Jackman are both good actors, and actually enjoy a distinctly interesting chemistry, their characters are thin and their romance is too scripted. It feels like they fall in love because this is the sort of film where dissimilar characters in such circumstances should fall in love. The cultural aspects regarding Nullah aren't hit on as clearly as the film might have hoped; a shame because its opening and closing scenes and captions suggest it was a priority. And by the time WWII arrives the film is simply all over the place.

Aside from Kidman and Jackman, Walters certainly impresses. In his first role, he displays a great amount of enthusiasm and, unusually for a child actor, presence. Wenham makes for a deliciously slippery and devious villain; there's something almost Alan Rickman-esque about him. But Fletcher is so slippery and so devious there's nothing interesting going on with the character. Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson also make a couple of memorable contributions, but the film's events really only revolve around Sarah, Drover and Nullah, so everyone else is rather pushed aside.

Luhrmann is a visually-focused director; he takes pride in strong images, and his films all have a certain flair to them. However, Australia is not up to his usual standard. Particularly in the first half of the film, the camera is all over the place. It whirls and spins, zooms in an out like it's possessed. Cinematographer Mandy Walker obviously carries some of the blame here, but it's very much Luhrmann's way of doing things that's the problem. The film almost wants to be a traditional epic while still being shot in Luhrmann's usual way, which is a bit like trying to turn a nice fillet burger back into a steak. I was also disappointed at what appeared to be a rather large number of - badly done - shots using artificial backgrounds or green screens. They look tacky, as do a lot of the special effects in the film, and you have to question the point of using them when the natural scenery is so striking and beautiful.

Australia is an epic in intent, but not in execution. Even the name itself - when emblazoned across the screen at the beginning of the film - somehow gears you up for a sweeping and majestic experience. But instead it's too cluttered, too fragmented and too unrewarding. It's all the things that films approaching three hours in length should avoid being at all costs.

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