newcritics

Out of almost anyone, Baz Luhrmann is charting the course of the modern epic. Here’s the guy who’s done the biggest, if not the only, freely created new musical on film in the past 10 years (Moulin Rouge!), and one of the best modern dress adaptations of Shakespeare (and warhorse Shakespeare at that, finding new life in Romeo and Juliet), as well as bringing opera to Broadway (La Boheme). This guy thinks big. Very big.

Australia is big. Very big. Huge, in fact. Not one movie, but at least two - and probably three - Australia manages to pay homage to the continent, country and culture as (almost) no one could: it’s respectful, challenging, down to earth and ethereal all at once. The shame, I think, is that a film that should have had no trouble getting Oscar nominations may well be the biggest struggle and hardest sell.

It still could; Australia is a crowd pleaser, and may very well please older Oscar types who remember the golden age. Luhrmann certainly does, and sprinkles references - none more shameless than turning “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” into an emotional touchstone at the heart of the film - to the golden age at every turn.

Australia is the story of Lady Sarah Ashley, a British noblewoman who chases her husband down to their colonial estate in the north country, near Darwin, where, in short order, she discovers him murdered, up-ending her plans to sell the property, and their cattle, and bring him home. She has been escorted to the homestead by Drover, a hard charging rancher played by Hugh Jackman. All that’s left on her property are a small herd, two aboriginal women as servants, and her drunken accountant.

Oh, and there’s also the most adorable mixed race boy ever seen on film, too.

His name is Nullah, and his story is the real driver of this film (and Brandon Walters, who plays him, is a revelation). Through Nullah, Luhrmann touches on the complicated history of British colonialism in Australia, where the government recently apologized for the treatment of an entire lost generation of mixed race children taken by the government in systematic fashion to be raised by the state. Luhrmann does a bravura job of respectfully covering this aspect of the country’s history without making it seem like a harangue or a guilt trip.

But Australia, at heart, is a big vision epic, and there’s much more going on: at first, it’s a Western, as Lady Ashley, Drover and team attempt to bring their cattle to the Darwin port while escaping the nefarious plans of a competing rancher. Once that’s settled, we see Drover and Lady Ashley attempt to make a new life together, only to have the arrival of the Japanese (who set out for Australia after Pearl Harbor) interrupt their plans, and possibly their lives.

Few performers could head these proceedings without seeming a little lost in all the big set pieces; that Nicole Kidman doesn’t is probably testament to how big a star she’s become. That’s also surely a credit to Luhrmann, who has taken her from French prostitute to English nobility, while all the while polishing her big screen allure. Kidman’s never looked better than here in Australia, or back in Moulin Rouge!, and clearly she trusts Luhrmann to get it right.

Hugh Jackman is a harder case… literally. He’s less in the early proceedings than posed in front of them like a living Ken doll or super action figure. Jackman’s so toned and pressed it’s almost distracting (and as good as Catherine Martin’s period outfits make Kidman look, that pales in comparison to the form fitting way Jackman’s adventure wardrobe highlights his physique). Jackman’s strong, man of few words performance can seem a bit cliche… but when he finds the film’s emotional heart, late in the game, you can see how canny some of his choices have been. It’s a real, and heartfelt, transformation.

Luhrmann’s gotten some rough press for scaling too big and losing sight of his characters; honestly, I didn’t see it. What’s here is visually striking, well thought out, and impeccably executed (there are more breathtaking, breathless camera swoops than I could count, impressive in single takes). It’s also shamelessly constructed to wring every drop of emotion from an audience… as any good epic should.

Some are bound to be turned off by the theatricality on display in Australia; this isn’t Clint Eastwood’s notion of a war epic, or any number of other “men’s men” directors I could think of. But in scope and sweep, almost no one attempts, as Luhrmann does, to capture the feel of classic films with the actual cast of thousands in thrilling locales. And few can do that, and keep a story in mind, and have it resonate as Australia does.

More than anything, Luhrmann has mastered the sense of scale for big projects - that not just the sets, or the look, need to be big, but everything does, including the story elements and the emotions in play. And for all the over-the-top sentiment, almost all of the big moments in Australia feel fully earned, and sincere (and I’m guessing “Canada” and “India” will wish they too had epic dramas to showcase their stories as well). If only someone had managed to market it more effectively! There’s an audience for Westerns and War Movies that would eat up Australia, if only they knew. One can only hope that the Academy might see in Australia the magic of Hollywood’s Golden Age: the sense that, on a big scale, there is still so much to gaze at in wonder, and so much yet to discover.