Australia is not a great romantic epic, but it is a good popcorn romantic epic. It isn’t a big, serious attempt to make us laugh and cry while changing the world – and sweeping the Oscars. It is a light and frivolous and silly big movie that does make us laugh and cry and then sends us out to face the world it has helped us forget – and it may even win an award or two.
John Updike once wrote, “Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.” He could have been describing director Baz Luhrmann. While reviewing Zack and Miri Make a Porno, I complained about director Kevin Smith’s inability to do anything interesting with his camera. Well, Smith’s Yin has its Yang in Luhrmann’s aversion to leaving his camera alone – the constant swooping and swirling is dizzying.
Luhrmann has been at it for a while. His first and still best movie is the little Australian gem Strictly Ballroom, a musical of delightful simplicity. Next came Romeo + Juliet and his head was already swelling, filled with elaborate visions. Both Romeo and Juliet were overwhelmed by his excesses. Luhrmann then completed his loose trilogy of neo-musical pop culture pastiche with Moulin Rouge, a film so over the top it took me three viewings to find a way to like it.
Australia is a return to his roots – Australia. It is also both a departure and more of the same. He has moved on from the musical genre and now given us his take on the western. Otherwise, his playful obsessions linger on, such as huge camera gestures, melodrama, loving homage to Hollywood movies, and lots of music. But, I’m not complaining. Those are things I loved about it.
Australia is filled with shots that couldn’t possibly have been filmed using a crane, or even a helicopter. You sit back and marvel at them and try to forget that, these days, they scream computer generation. The best sequence is a massive cattle stampede along the edge of an impossibly high cliff and a young boy standing alone trying to conjure enough magic to keep them all from plunging to their deaths. It’s genuinely stirring. It’s not for those like me who are deathly afraid of heights.
Article comments
1 - Sheri
Great review. honest and I like that.
2 - mike edwards
Calling that film "Australia" is like Calling "Giant" "America"
3 - Dr Dreadful
LOL @ #2.
I had an English teacher in high school who abhorred one-word titles and forbade us from using them for any of our essays or stories. He argued that a title had to give some sense of what the work was about and you couldn't possibly do that with just a single word.
(I suspect he was secretly highly relieved that our set curriculum Shakespeare turned out to be The Merchant of Venice and not Hamlet or Macbeth or Othello...)
I understand that Luhrmann toyed with several working titles, all of which were pretty naff, before settling on Australia, and the title - while it says nothing about the movie other than where it takes place - does rather befit the grand scale of the story.
So does Giant, even though it isn't called America. I mean think about it. It's called Giant. A fittingly epic title for an epic movie. (Although it's a long time since I saw it and I don't remember much about it other than that James Dean's performance was absolutely stunning.)