Australia

Australia

Baz Luhrmann wanted to make an Australian “Gone With the Wind,” and so he has, with much of the epic beauty of that film and some of the same awkwardness about a national legacy of racism. This is what is described as a “sweeping romantic melodrama,” a big, corny, old-fashioned family entertainment that would never have been made if it hadn’t been for the burning obsession of its producer (Luhrmann for “Australia,” David O. Selznick for “GWTW”). It’s exuberantly old-fashioned coming from a director known for his punk-rock “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” and the curtain-up frenzies of “Moulin Rouge,” and I mean that as a compliment.

The movie is set in 1939. Hitler has invaded Poland. The armies will need beef. In England, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is alarmed by reports that her husband is philandering on his enormous cattle station, Faraway Downs, in northern Australia. She comes to see for herself, but arrives to find him murdered. Now owner of an expanse large as some countries, she dresses as if for tea. The British long followed the practice of dressing in warm climates as if they were not, and Lady Ashley keeps up the standard.

Here is who she finds: Drover (Hugh Jackman), named after his trade, is rough-hewn independent cowboy who has never seen a woman anything like her; he runs cattle drives; she wants him to be manager of the station but he’s a rolling stone; at Faraway Downs he drives with experienced Aborigine ranch hands; under his special protection there’s Nullah (Brandon Walters), who is 11 or 12 and whose grandfather King George (David Gulpilil) has been accused of murdering Lady Ashley’s husband and fled to this mountaintop where he seems to be able to see everything. Nullah is the most beautiful boy, bright and filled with insight, of mixed race, and serves as narrator for the film.

As “Australia” is in essence a Western, there must be an evil rancher with a posse of stooges (King Carney, played by Bryan Brown), who wants to add Faraway Downs to his empire; much will depend on whether Carney or Faraway can be first to deliver cattle in the port city of Darwin; Lady Ashley, prepared to sell out to Carney, sees things that make her reconsider and determines to join Drover, Nullah and a ragtag band on a cattle drive that will eventually lead into No Man’s Land; meanwhile the delicate lady and the rough Drover begin to fall in love like Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler.

She falls in love with the boy and emotionally adopts him. Nullah is under constant threat of being taken away by police enforcing a national policy that says part-white aboriginal children should be taken to missions “to have the black bred out of them” and trained for service. This was federal law until 1973. And you thought we were slow to change.

A cross between “GWTW” and “Red River,” loosely infused with “Rabbit-Proof Fence” (2002) and World War II. Luhrmann pulls back here, known for his close work with the camera, to show us the beautiful landscape and how big this cattle drive is. CGI supplies most of the cattle, it seems, which explains how they can rush toward a high cliff in what will strike some as hokey but is also the movie’s most dramatic moment: Nullah channeling his grandfather’s teachings.

It’s a great scene, though it does dramatize the film’s uncertainty about race. Luhrmann is rightly scornful of Australia’s “reeducation” policies; he has Nullah take pride in his heritage and portrays its white enforcers as the demented racists they were. But Australia also subscribes to aboriginal mystical powers wholesale, and that I think may be condescending.

Well, what do you think? Can aboriginals materialize anywhere they want? Become invisible? Are they telepaths? Can they get messages straight from dead people? Yes but only spiritually or metaphorically. Literally? If Nullah knows some things beforehand, then why does he turn into such a scared little boy who needs rescuing later on? The Australians spent decades treating their natives as subhuman; now they politely invest them with godlike gifts. I’m not sure that’s flattering. What they suffered, how they survived, how they triumphed and what they accomplished was done by human beings just like us.

The film has problems because of its belief in mystical powers all over it. If Nullah can see everything and knows what will happen sometimes beforehand, why does he turn into such a scared little boy later on who needs rescuing? The climactic events call for action sequences as generic as love stories must be sweeping Scarlett met Rhett in the same society. Lady Sarah and Drover meet across a divide that separates not only social class but lifestyle, education and geography; one can cross it, but not during anything so easy as a moonlit night with “Over the Rainbow” being played on a harmonica.

“GWTW,” for all its faults and racial stereotyping, gave us a world they believed in. “Australia” gives us a world meant mostly as fable, and that takes away some of its power. But what a beautiful film, what strong performances, what thrilling images and yes, what sweeping romantic melodrama. The kind of movie that is a movie.

Watch Australia For Free On Gomovies.