Australia (2008)
directed by Baz Luhrmann
***
grown-up emo
Matthew Arnold once claimed that in a post-religious world, we could be saved only by culture. For Baz, it gets even more specific: for him, our hope for any normalcy or salvation in this world lies in the power of pop culture.
You know, the mythic anchor we're supposed to find in kitschy songs like "Somewhere over the Rainbow." The seeming-relevance of having each character act and think like a teenager. The deliriously contrarian happy ending, which shoulders its way into the film against all realism or believability. Luhrmann's films have always been driven by emotion, and never by reason, but the lure of his earlier stories was usually more than enough to keep things interesting. Here, it's off the leash.
one part heaving melodrama
I read a review of Australia recently that referred to the film's penchant for body-gazing. Luhrmann has never been one for realism, so I guess it's not a surprise that Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are never wearing realistic clothes for their setting, and instead look like they've walked off the Fall Collection shoot. But far beyond that, they just can't take their eyes off each other. Eventually, the fixation moves to their lips, in a series of voluptous kissing shots that made me wonder, what in the world was the cameraman doing that close? And, would people this old really kiss that much?
The first 5 hours of the film* are dedicated to heaving melodrama. Predictable melodrama. The proper, stuck-up beauty who's transplanted from civilization into the wild. The beastly, handsome man-on-the-fringe who lures her into coming of age all over again. You know, the unlikely match? And then, of course, they stick it out together against the objections of the conservative town. And brave impossible circumstances in order to cross the bad dudes and save the day. I think I've seen this story before, too many times.
Where Luhrmann's plot lacks in originality though, he makes up for with staginess. Even though he's shooting in Australia herself, he insists on shooting many scenes to make the actors look like they're on a sound stage (his trademark throwaway flourish), and also ends up incorporating some funky rotation shots from a helicopter that reminded me of Spy Game. He's not hitting the all-out craziness of Moulin Rouge! or Romeo + Juliet. But he's not doing the home-grown sass of Strictly Ballroom either. Australia just never sorts out a style of its own, so most of the time it's stuck with a visual identity crisis.
one part colonial guilt
But wait! — you were about to think that Australia was nothing more than a ill-conceived bodice ripper with some fab scenery and sweeping panoramas. There's waaay more than that. Like, for instance, the other 5 hours* of the plot, which are obsessed with the Stolen Generations, those aboriginal children who were seized by the Australian government and used as servants for the white landowners. Really, it's a terrible story, one that went on under official policy until the 1970s and wasn't apologized for until 2008. It's well told in Rabbit-Proof Fence.
If you're looking to Baz Luhrmann for a sensitive portrayal of issues, though, you've come to the wrong place. In an move that seems like a personal attempt to atone for the wrongs, he makes a young "creamy" the narrator for the film. Three problems here:
1. For the first 30 minutes of the film, I thought the boy was a girl. That's confusing.
2. The narration makes the film even more hokey than it already was, and slips Lurhmann into a storyline that demands mental contortions to follow.
3. According to the symbolism of the story, aborigines are only OK if they're civilized just a little by the white people and then let loose. After all, only white people are heroes. Yikes.
The mishandling of the subject matter was definitely the second strike for me. In an attempt to tell a story about racism, the story itself was incredibly, implicitly racist. The self-centered white couple at the center of the story help out the mixed-race children, and why? Because one of the boys gave them a sense of family. They were really only trying to rescue that one boy anyway - the others just happened to be around at the same time. The boy himself is pictured as a bit of a loony, convinced he is doing aboriginal magic when in virtually every case a more "plausible" (white culture / condescending) explanation is given. The "faithful minority sidekick" comes into play here, too, with a character who is so under-used that you can't remember his name; of course, he's the one who gets to sacrifice himself in order for the white hero to emerge unscathed and successful. Even the aboriginal "King George" character is tolerated only because he hasn't taken any actions against the white people or confronted their plundering way of life.
At this point, you may be wondering why I'm so distraught with these failings. Well, first, because I believe that this subject matter is important, and a serious issue that Americans should come to grips with. People like many of the white colonists in Australia were guilty as sin, and deserve for their villainy to come to light (just like the guilt of other colonists like imperial Britain, the Dutch and recently, the United States). The problem here is that Baz dropped the ball ... something like 3 stories down. The film's not worthy of the topic.
You may also be wondering how I managed to give this 3 stars anyway. It's because about a third of this film is impressive. Some scenes are well told, and many are well shot. I could tell Kidman and Jackman were trying hard, even if they weren't well directed and so came off stilted at times. So overall, I awarded it as a valiant, misled effort. Alas, I don't recommend it (even if you're a Luhrmann fan), except as a cautionary tale.
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