Right now it is raining

| Friday January 9, 2009 00:00

Faraway Downs faces unfair competition from King Carney (Bryan Brown) who controls a monopoly on cattle driven to market (the old drover route was to South Australia, but with war imminent it is now to Darwin and cattle ships bound for Europe).

The owner of Faraway Downs, Lord Ashley is being hoodwinked by his manager, Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) a thirdrd generation employee on the one million acre spread. When Ashley drowns it is alleged he has been killed by the Aboriginal leader known as King George (David Gulpilil). Fletcher has had a son by an Aboriginal woman at Faraway Downs. He is Nullah (acted by the newcomer Brandon Walters), a mixed race or 'half cast' boy of around 12-years-old. King George is Nullah's grandfather and his tutor in the old ways of lore and magic.

Lady Sarah Ashley (the fine, award winning Australian actress, Nicole Kidman) sets off from England to find out why her husband hasn't come home. The uppity Lady is helped in Darwin by a loner simply called  Drover (Hugh Jackman). Thus begins the great epic saga of attraction and repulsion, and as Australia is also a love story, you will know who wins out-but if I want to see the best of this type of romance I would rather watch The African Queen again where Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn duel and fall together.

Drover takes her to the rundown cattle station and she learns from the alcoholic Finance Officer Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson) that her cattle are being stolen by Caney's outfit and that Neil Fletcher is in cahoots as he also makes money from their fat cows vanishing across the river.

Others dismiss Flynn as an alcoholic, but Sarah has learned enough to begin to want to fight instead of sell. When she wakes up to the realities she tries to get Drover to help, enticing him by offering him the station's prize stallion Capricornia (the name of Xavier Herbert's first novel in 1938), if he will help move 1,500 cattle north to Darwin to waiting ships to be transported to England for the war effort. There is a friendly Army officer, Captain Dutton (Ben Mendelsohn) who has been hesitating to award the contact to King Carney as he wants competition.  Before the exodus, Sarah tries to get to know Nullah, who is actually Fletcher's son. One nice part of the flick is when she tries to sing to him, Somewhere over the Rainbow, but can't remember the words of the song. Later Judy Garland intrudes into Oz. Nullah has been avoiding the Northern Territory police as he doesn't want to be captured and sent to a mission boarding school on an island off Darwin (the official policy then, later labeled 'The Stolen Generation'). Be warned, Australia lacks the humour found in the other Oz classic, Crocodile Dundee (1980).

Part Two of this long epic, covers the movement of the cattle between Faraway Downs and Darwin. Along the way Fletcher and his men try to sabotage the drive through fire, forced cattle stampedes and poisoned waterholes. Grandpa helps show them the way through NeverNeverLand and to water. Later he guides his grandson to safety.

Afterwards, when Nullah wants to go on his walkabout, Drover warns Sarah to accept, because you can't change him, you have to let him go. Otherwise, he will have no people, no story, no songs, no dreaming.

The next Part -yes, this is why this extravagant flick is three hours long-has to do with World War II, and the Japanese attack on Darwin (after December 7 1941-Pearl Harbour when the Americans then entered the war).

This flick is really a very poor version of the great novel Poor Fellow My Country (1975) but without the backdrop of Australian politics, the annual races, an intense exploration of complex human relations, and so on. Australia is all cardboard figures and hamming exaggerations. Poor Nicole Kidman-as an Australian she should have known better than to try to recreate 'Red River' (no digital cattle there). Instead she has been upset by the criticism and abandoned Australia where she usually celebrates Christmas to return home to Nashville, Tennessee.

The drink consumed on the station and in the segregated bars is called Poor Fella Rum - does it exist or is this a sideways recognition of Xavier Herbert's massive 1,600 page novel? Herbert knew what he was writing about as he became the Superintendent of Aborigines at Darwin in 1935. He'd also worked as a stock rider, aviator, miner and deep-sea diver.

The new star of 'Australia' is the young boy who plays Nullah, Brandon Walters from Broome in Western Australia. He is good, but his part could easily have been strengthened. David Gulpilil of Walkabout (1971) fame is back as Nullah's grandfather and the inspired Wizard of Oz.

'Australia' is three hours and five minutes long. It is rated 13+ because of barroom brawls, sorcery, spearings, tramplings and general mayhem at various times. It is in Australian-though Lady Ashley speaks clipped English. The director is Baz Luhrmann who gave us Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge. The script is by the director with Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan.

The cinematographer is Mandy Walker. The editors are Dody Dorn and Michael McCusker. The music is by David Hirschfelder. The production designer is Catherine Martin. Oddly, Australia was filmed in the Far North Queensland town of Bowen, not even in the NT. Luhrmann's next film could be on the destruction of Darwin on Christmas day in 1974 by Cyclone Tracy.
 sasa_majuma@yahoo.co.uk