by Ian Arkell
Is Baz Luhrman’s Australia one of the worst films ever made? I flicked onto a Slovenian black and white one a while ago on SBS that followed the last days of two druggies working out a suicide pact. That may have edged out Australia. But only just.
After a bit of background about how her husband has been killed in Australia, Nicole Kidman (Lady something or other) heads off to Oz with the stereotypical 100 items of baggage to meet with the manager of her late husband’s property, a guy called Drover. Of course the introduction to Drover had to be via a blokey fight scene in a pub. That was an innovative way of demonstrating how handy Hughie is in a punch-up. I wonder if Steven Segal or Chucky Norris ever thought of starting a movie that way? I thought for maybe a micro second that the thing would pick up. So I waited.
Later, Hughie Jackman (Drover), Nicole and an assortment of characters are travelling out to the property on this old truck loaded to the rafters. The shot shows them travelling on a boulder strewn road, way out in the middle of nowhere, when out of the blue an old aboriginal flame of Drovers starts jogging alongside the truck. Yeah that really rang true.
Then Nicole drops one of her many less than brilliant lines as a mob of roos run alongside the truck. She says something like, “what lovely animals” and just gets it out as someone shoots one of the roos and a second later the bloody remains of the roo are dumped onto the windscreen. Can’t work out the symbolism there. The guys on the top of the truck obviously dropped the roo, jumped off the truck and caught up with the truck in the space of two or three seconds. Yeah, that’d work.
On the first night, Drover who obviously keeps up his membership of the 1930s Darwin equivalent of Gym City, decides to wash himself with a bucket of water. So with the bucket at full stretch, all the pecs, abs start falling over each other to be seen. Oh, I thought, maybe it’s a skin flick. But things got worse.
We’re introduced to the evil cattle baron (Bryan Brown) who starts lusting after Nicole and also to Bryan Brown’s henchman, who seems to have a particular skill at both catching large blowflies and tying a piece of thread round their necks before strangling them. Maybe this bloke is as tough as Hughie, just more comfortable with blowflies than in a bar room fight. Horses for courses I guess.
We’re also told early on that it was the Blowfly Whisperer who had speared Nicole’s poor late husband. So it was a reasonable expectation that he’d end up speared as well. And there’s the chaotic scene later when the place is being bombed and evacuated and there’s sick and dying, smoke, the whole thing. Nicole and Hugh are taking forever to say goodbye and there’s a truck full of sick and injured waiting to get out of the joint. It’s the last truck out and the officer is yelling at Nicole to make it quick as the truck can’t wait etc. etc. Shades of a Casablanca farewell? Shades of lots of cinematic goodbyes I’d reckon. That’s the thing of it. So much of this comes across as a compilation of other movies, with a clutch of clichés and stereotypes tossed in for good measure. I really can’t work out if it was a serious film, a comedy, a send up or, as I suspect, a dud.
Gee’s there’s so much other stuff that really sucks in this movie. Cattle stampedes that are miraculously halted at the edge of a precipice by some young Aboriginal guy with mystical powers, cruel police officers who…well who cares? I read some comments by Baz that everybody was out to get him or wanted to kill him or words to that effect. I don’t wonder.
I was thinking of watching Australia again to see if I was being unfair. But they’re running the original uncut version of that Slovenian film about the druggies descending into madness. Ok it’s in Slovenian and for some reason the subtitles are in Arabic. But it still looks like more fun. At least no-one’s trying to strangle blowflies.
© Ian Arkell 2009
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Ian, going by the snippets I’ve seen, and the interviews, and some of the reviews, and the trailers, I reckon your comments hit the nail of the head.
It looks as if Baz Luhrman did a reasonable job of Americanising “Romeo and Juliet” but has made a mess of this one, not knowing exactly what to do with it.
And you’re right about European films. Hurrah for our wonderful SBS TV, eh! And their sub-titles are in English, too.
Brian
Ian, it was an outstandingly bad movie! I still find it hard to believe it was that bad. Awful, embarrassing waste of too many hours of my precious time!
Brian, be advised, Don’t get it to try – YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Tell me more about that top class Slovenian film.
-it has to be a better way of spending time.
Nick
I have to be honest Nick, I watched the Slovenian saga a second time. (of course any reasonable person would ask…why?) It was full of dark brooding periods of silence, with people staring at each other, being sick and shooting up.
Yeah, standing back and looking at the whole thing objectively, I have to say it was more fun than Australia. The blowfly whisperer would have loved it.
I’ve been thinking about “great” Australian films, given that “great” is subjective and that critics and audiences don’t necessarily agree.
I reckon I would include:
Breaker Morant (Anglo Australian production)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (the best)
Mad Max
But I haven’t seen some of the recent offerings which have been lauded, such as “Rabbit-Proof Fence”.
Just thinking aloud.
Brian
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a great film, Brian. Well worth a look.
Wendy, and Ian,
On Australian films.
“Walkabout” was a great film in its time. I wonder if it became a “classic” to be labelled “great”?
“The Devil’s Playground” was also very good, and hard-hitting. A Roman Catholic friend of mine strongly denied that such things happen. She was wrong, of course.
“Blue Fin”, was that a “classic”? (I published a series of three short stories based on the story and film, with the co-operation of Colin Thiele and the South Australian Film Corporation and the help of children in several Primary schools. That was 20 years ago. Oh, those were the days!)
Brian
Correction to previous. I produced the Blue Fin books 30 years ago, not 20. Tempus fugit.
Brian
Hi Brian,
Yep, tempus does have a habit of fugiting. There must be lots of other good Aussie films, although that’s a subjective thing eh?
I like the Castle which came out a few years ago. Good story about a family under threat; great performance by the late Bud Tingwell. And of course The Man Who Sued God with Billy Connolly, was another. I liked this for a lot of reasons, the main one of course being the basic premise that if something happens as an act of god, then god, or if he want take your calls, his agents- the church- should be held accountable. Can’t think of others at the moments but I tell you what; a lot of our series on TV would have to be as good if not better than a lot of stuff that issues from Hollwood. S’pose that’s being subjective as well.
Who was in Devil’s Playground?
Ian, the main character in “The Devil’s Playground” was played by Simon Burke then aged 13. Others were Arthur Dignman & Nick Tate. Thomas Keneally played the role of a priest visiting the seminary for a retreat, but I wasn’t impressed. He can’t act. Produced and directed by Fred Schepisi 1976.
I agree with you on the other issue and, yes, it’s subjective. Among my “favourite” (I don’t like that word) films are:
Fanny and Alexander, (the 5 hour version) Ingmar Bergman, Swedish
Elvira Madigan, Swedish
Death in Venice, Luchino Visconti, Italian
La Gloire de mon Père & Le Château de ma Mère, based on Marcel Pagnol’s autobiographies, French
Doctor Zhivago, David Lean, British/American
Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli, Italian
Gormenghast, TV series based on Mervyn Peake’s stories, BBC
Latcho Drom, Tony Gatlif, French, Romani and many other languages
I’ve watched those many times on DVD.
“Favourite” directors: Ingmar Bergman and David Lean.
Brian
Ian,
There is now a new great Australian film.
“Samson and Delilah” won the Camera d’Or at Cannes and is doing very well in other overseas festivals and in the cinema. It is to be submitted as Australia’s entry in the Best Foreign Film category at the USA Academy awards.
I watched it on ABC1 TV last night. Very difficult to describe it, as it moves into areas untouched by previous Australian films. It presents a view of Australia which many viewers of Baz Luhrman’s film would probably prefer not to know about. It goes beyond “neo-Realism” to reality.
This UK review is well written and more informative than the Australian reviews I’ve found:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/the-outbacks-samson-and-delilah-1674758.html
Brian
Hi Brian,
Sounds interesting. That was a good review; if not a little depressing. But you’re right, it sounds realistic and I guess something like that makes the Luhrman effort look like a Year 12 work experience effort. Though maybe that’s unfair to Year twelve students. I might try and get the DVD over here or for Christmas from back home.
Trouble is that we project an image overseas that sometimes flies in the face of our history. People see the Crocodile Dundees and the atrocious Australia and think that’s us. Well maybe not everyone but a lot.
Regarding our treatment of Aboriginals, we have a lot to be ashamed about. Then again Belgian’s treatment of people in the Congo in the late 19th century was also a shameful episode. But I suppose all colonial powers had dirty little secrets.
Australia is no different. And I don’t really think Kevin Rudd’s apology to the stolen generation was anything other than a political stunt. Sure it was overdue but it doesn’t look as though that ‘sorry’ has translated into any sustainable and practical improvement for the Aboriginal people. So other than make him look like a ‘touchy feely’ sort of guy, what was the point?
Having said that I don’t know what the answer is. And when I read of the problems besetting aboriginal communities, I don’t know if the problems are capable of resolution. Gee’s, like how many billions were thrown at the problems through ATSIC? How much of that was subverted, wasted or stolen?
I suspect that like the Middle East saga, it’s a problem that’s going to be round for an awfully long term.
Ian, the DVD of “Samson and Delilah” is due for release in Australia this month, for about $40. It isn’t yet listed by AmazonUK.
“Depressing” is the word. The film is very slow moving. It is harsh. There is little dialogue. The viewer has to stick with it.
There are some actions relating to Aboriginal custom which many folk might not notice or will not understand. The young teenage stars are remarkable. The background music is in a way similar to that of “Picnic at Hanging Rock”, in its instrumentation rather than its mood.
I know a city-based Aboriginal couple who always have up to a dozen kids in their care for varying lengths of time. They are sent down from the Northern Territory by the Elders, for education, sport, health care re-socialisation, and relief from the problems they have at home. Alcohol, glue sniffing and abuse have been part of their lives.
The only world famous person who has been to my place was David Gulpilil, when I was working on a book about him. He spoke beautifully of his Dreaming. He walks on red carpets at film launches. He is lauded as a great dancer and actor. And he has also had problems with the authorities up in the N.T., including glue sniffing.
Some people are torn between cultures, some are isolated, their social structure and their lives broken, alas, by a history of white “Christian” influences. That includes, as you say, Belgians. There’s a photo in a book I have, showing Congolese Africans who were punished by the Belgian authorities by having their hands cut off. And what happened to the native peoples of North America when white Christians took over? Before that, the Spanish did their work in South America, too. And in southen Africa, a common saying was that the missionaries came with a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other.
“Samson and Delilah” is not a political statement but it is a poweful reminder, for those who will undersand it, of what has happened because of the breakdown of a culture.
Brian
Still making me laugh. I totally agree with the Baz Luhrmann comments about Australia. Romeo and Juliet was fantastic, but all his others……….
Regards to Belgium, beautiful country.
I would agree that the country is beautiful; but, even more the food is wonderful.
Colin