Australia
Rated PG-13 for some violence, a scene of sensuality, and brief strong language.
reviewed by Christopher Lyon
It's a big movie named after a big country. It's a version of the old west where the cowboys call each other "mate" and talk about billabongs. It's three hours of giant sets and movie stars and civil rights and maternal longing. It's an epic romantic musical western without any songs. It's "Australia."
The Story
Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) is a very proper English woman arrived in Australia in 1939 to force her husband to sell his failing cattle operation and return with her to England. After a rough introduction to the rough country by her husband's "trusted man"/cattle driver Drover (Hugh Jackman), Sarah is delivered to her husband's remote Faraway Downs station only to find him just murdered.
Though she is told he was killed by an old Aboriginal witch doctor named King George (David Gulpilil), a young boy named Nullah (Brandon Walters) begins to show her not all is as it seems. Nullah is a "half-caste" with a white father and a black mother. By national policy, all the half-caste kids are taken from their mothers and sent away to mission schools/prison camps, a fate Nullah has avoided so far.
Sarah learns that Nullah is the secret son of her husband's white cattle manager Fletcher (David Wenham) and that Fletcher has been quietly stealing unbranded cattle from her husband and adding them to the massive herds of King Carney (Bryan Brown). If not for Faraway Downs, Carney would have a monopoly on beef in northern Australia, which is why he wants to buy her out. Sarah fires Fletcher and begs Drover to help her get their cattle to market in time to sell it to the Australian army and save the business.
During the dangerous drive across Australian wilderness (repeatedly sabotaged by Carney and Fletcher), the independent-minded Drover, proper Sarah, and young orphan Nullah begin to build a kind of family bond. It's a bond that will be tested, especially when Australia is pulled into World War II by a surprise Japanese attack.
The Verdict
What we thought of the movie on it own terms
What Works: "Australia" opens in 1939 and director Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge!" "Romeo + Juliet") is determined to give his film the sweeping epic feel of the giant movies made around 1939, including "The Wizard of Oz" and "Gone With the Wind." The sets are vast and gorgeous and detailed. The massive Australian sky is painted with all the watercolor hues of a Kansas sunset. And the city of Darwin burns as dramatically as Atlanta.
For better and worse, the storytelling is just as big and broad and sweeping. What holds it all together, though, is Nullah. Young actor Brandon Walters gives the best performance of the film. He makes the kid adorable and vulnerable and strong and innocent without making him either too cute or turning him into a miniature adult. It's an award-worthy feat.
Nullah's story is the one among the six or seven plot lines that has a genuine beating heart. He is more than simply a representation of all the "creamy" kids of Australia's stolen generation. He is fully developed as the son of an evil guy and grandson of a kindly witch doctor, as a boy wondering how to be a man, and as an orphan longing to belong.
As pure visual escapist entertainment, "Australia" has all the trappings of a classic. It's weaknesses make the nearly three hour running time feel long, but for me it was never tedious. Luhrmann knows how to keep an audience looking at the screen.
What Doesn't Work: The movie is musical theater on the world's grandest stage without any song or dance numbers. In several key moments, I honestly expected the cast to break into a big production number. That theatricality generates tons of enthusiasm, but the characters themselves (other than Nullah) are sketched way too large to appear human. Kidman and Jackman look good, but Luhrmann plays them as puppets on his stage, entering and exiting, fighting and embracing, wooden and fictional characters in love with a real boy.
The film's length is also extended by five or six natural climaxes, dividing it up into chapters and breaking the flow of the story. That will make it handy to watch the DVD over two or three nights, but it's a little tiring all in one sitting.
Content: Action/adventure violence results in several deaths, including those of key characters. Nothing especially graphic is shown. Sarah and Drover are seen having sex under strategically covering sheets and end up living together without ever discussing marriage. Some rough language is heard.
Worldview
How the film's take on life compares to a biblical perspective
In addition to some vaguely defined (but powerful) pagan spirituality on the part of Nullah and his grandfather, "Australia" offers at least two major worldview perspectives to consider. One has to do with the nature of families. Some families come together in the old fashioned way of man and wife having kids and living in a little house. Other kinds of families happen because a group of former strangers simply make the choice to be a family.
Sarah and Drover and Nullah need each other and share an adventure. Then they must decide if they belong together. Are they responsible for each other? Or are they free to walk away? The film's answer rides with Drover, the last to realize his life is best spent in providing for and protecting these two adopted family members.
God's Word agrees with that big idea that families can be made up of brothers and sisters of different mothers willing to swear allegiance to each other. That's the foundation of the Christian church, all siblings in the family of God. But the Bible teaches that families work best when their commitment to each other is formalized ahead of time, especially by marriage.
Drover's confusion about his role in Sarah's life is made worse by their choice to live and sleep together without a commitment. He could have saved himself serious angst by swearing himself to her before moving in with her.
The other significant worldview issue in play is that of racism on a national and personal scale. Australia's policy of stealing biracial kids from their black moms is clearly condemned. The willingness of Sarah and Drover to befriend, hire, care for, and defend black and biracial people is shown to be courageous in an era of ugly racism.
Jesus displayed exactly that kindness and courage in reaching out to the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, part of a nation defined by its biracial heritage. Jesus broke tradition by talking to her and asking her to give Him water. And he announced God's new relationship with all of mankind by saying that she could drink of the water of eternal life through faith in Him even though she wasn't Jewish. (You can read the whole story in John 4.)
With Jesus as our model, Christians, more than anyone, should be known as a people who offer acceptance, kindness, and love to people of all races and mixtures of races. Paul wrote that race is beside the point for those adopted into God's family. Any hint of racism in our attitudes is sin and godlessness.
But Jesus also expressed his love to this woman by pointing out her sin of living with a man she was not married to (like Sarah in the film), as well as showing Himself to her as the only path to a future with God in heaven. Her unique national religion (like that of Nullah's grandfather) would not save her. Our love and acceptance of other races is not compassionate if we are not as colorblind in our message of every person's need for forgiveness of sin through faith in Jesus alone.
It's a big message, even bigger than Australia.
Questions:
- Were you looking forward to "Australia"? Did it live up to the hype for you?
- Are you a fan of Baz Luhrmann's other films: "Strictly Ballroom," "Romeo + Juliet," and "Moulin Rouge!"
- How much did you know about Australia's "stolen generation" of biracial kids before you saw the film?
- How do you think Christians do these days in accepting and reaching out to people of all races and ethnic backgrounds? Why do you think that is? How can we do better?
- Do you think it's a big deal when individual families aren't built around a married husband and wife? Why or why not?
- Have you ever been to Australia? Are you going back? Can I come? What an amazing looking place!
