CRIKEY!

Well yes...
Last 2 weeks' Twilight obsession has been completely blown out of my mind, replaced by a spankin' new, shiny Australia fad.
Not that my constant stupid fangirl melt-in-a-puddle screech was any indicator I was completely a slave to Hugh Jackman prior to this movie... but it certainly helped quite a bit.


I mean, how can you possibly think of tweeny Robert Pattison when you have this:



Yes my friends, ladies and gents... that is what I call, a Man, with a capital "M" no less.

Uh... Anyhow... So, about the movie itself. Mmm... critics are very much divided about this one. Its either give or take. Baz Luhrmann's new love-child is, in my opinion, a perfect example of "cater-to-a-genre" movie. You'll have to love the style if you want to enjoy the experience.

Australia is an epic "slice-of-life" type, a "Gone With the Wind" type of romance and "Dance with the Wolves" type of adventure.

It's long, no denying that. 2 hours long, it spans almost 4 years worth of history and life. Starting in 1939 when WW2 was on the brink of exploding out of Europe and ending with the bombing of Darwin in northern Australia by Japan in 1942 right after Pearl Harbor, Australia delivers facts in a very raw, in-your-face manner.

It's also very heavy. By that, I mean in content and layers. One one hand, you have Lady Ashley (Kidman), English aristocrat that travels to Australia to convince her husband to sell their ranch there and return home only to discover he was assassinated and that the land is coveted by a cattle king monopolizing the meat market in Northern Australia. In preventing that, she will be assisted by the Drover (Jackman) and a gaggle of other characters, one of them being a half/aboriginal child named Nualla.

Insert here historical and social comment... Through Nualla's character, Luhrmann depicts the "Stolen Generations", an event akin to negro-assimilation elsewhere in the world. Half-caste children were taken away from their families to be "educated" in mission camps.

Through that, you get social comment on life in general in Australia at the time, army attitudes, businessman and cultural interpretations of about anything related to day-to-life events and grander ones on the scale of WW2.

And then, there's all the layering. Australia needs to be looked at twice, even thrice and probably more. Events thumble quickly, characters evolve, time passes and not always for us to see. Fletcher's (Wenham ...native Aussie!) character is something in itself. A broken man, perhaps, but also rutheless, pitiless and very much angry and sad for all his possessions and standing. Now all of this, we need to observe. It is not given for us to wait and receive these deductions thru other channels. They also are not obviously thrust in our faces. And that's only characters, not events.

Like life, Australia needs to be felt, it needs to be deduced, it needs to be observed, it needs to be experienced.

And on to romance... well. What can I say? If you've enjoyed Sissi, Gone with the Wind and love Scarlet O'Hara, you'll love this.

Australia is a romance like none had been made in a decade. It spans years, feelings deep and yet real and genuine. Jackman's delivery was surprising in its subtlety and finesse. Some expressions he showed I had never seen before in such stark honesty. It was a delight to savor. Kidman, which I've always loved, delivers as well. Lady Ashley is endearing, candid, naïve, lonely and lost all in turn and all at the same time. It a feast for the eyes.

The style of course is all very dramatic. It feeds from older genres and older times. The delivery is often exaggerated, the images rich and typical of Luhrmann. If you've seen and enjoyed Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, you'll understand what I mean. Look only at this (and yes, even though this is a poster, it's an actual movie scene!):



See how she bends underneath his hands? See how he cradles her, strong and protective? They don't make kissing scenes (or even movies..) like that anymore... or maybe I'm just old-fashioned in these things.

What I enjoyed most of Australia (besides Jackman topless covered in water and soap... *groan*) was the sheer span of lives it covers. This is not only about Lady Ashley and the Drover. It's about so many more lives that they touch and that touches them. I've seen in recent romances thta outside their little love bubble, the world barely exists for most protagonists. In Australia, the protagonists exist in the world instead.

I've seen it, I've loved it. Can't wait for the soundtrack (Sir Elton John!)

Aaridys

Humeur: d'la neige... ok, du verglas... câlisse!!
Musique: "You know my Name" Chris Cornell