Crikey!! 'Austraila': Film Review

Rating :

Returning from an afternoon cinema trip to see 'Gone With The Wind 2', better known at the box office as 'Australia', my head was rushing. Papered across town with mixed reviews, some good, some bad, some awful; clearly this was a film that had split opinion.

It had not split me however. A genuinely good film I thought. Normally I can't stand Nicole Kidman. Her extreme-Englishness makes me want to throw a cricket ball at her head. Her forehead makes for such a large target that I should strike something. Plus, I partly blame her for ruining my saint-like appreciation of Tom Cruise, the once pearly-smiled likeable shortman of Hollywood turned scientological fanatic and destroyer of anything that's holy. BUT - this aggression aside, she was bearable for most of the 2hrs 45 mins.

Expect the dubious nods to Australian culture such as the token kangaroo, and the portrayal of the aboriginals in the film is bound to stir up some controversy somewhere. Although, I can't help but feel a fairer treatment is given to them than can be spoken of the cameo Greek actors in 'Mamma Mia!' - something I may not have noticed if I hadn't been dating a Greek girl for some time now - efharisto very much.

At this length you better make sure you keep some popcorn for the final stretch, at least to keep the Kidman-itis at bay. But I can't say I was ever bored by this film, or ever wished it would end. It was, in nature, an epic. Epics require a longer pitch. There is nothing quite so epic about a 90 minute Woody Allen comedy - humorous, rude, illicit - but not epic.

You may well disagree with me about Woody and his heroic sagas of life and love in downtown upstate, leftside New York. But, regardless, this is where I ask Pandora to open up her box - what makes a film an epic?

It's clear that we love epics. They are some of the most celebrated and awarded films in history. Ben Hur (1959) won 11 Academy Awards, a feat matched only by two other films, one of which was Lord of the Rings (2004), a great epic of the 21st Century. Various films have tried to make claims to join the genre.

King Kong (both 1933 and 2005) made valid claims. They are films with high production values, sweeping musical scores and an ensemble cast of bankable stars. But we can't honestly think for a second that an overgrown monkey on an overgrown building has the mettle to be an epic? It's just not realistic enough - it lacks believability. Now we enter difficult terrain.

What claim can Lord of The Rings or Star Wars have to be an epic? Answer: their fantasy world remains consistent within itself. The world of a hobbit or a jedi is alien to us, but natural to those characters. In films like King Kong (Jurrassic Park, Spiderman - all super hero films), the audience is asked to confront a world which is parrallel to their own, a realism they know and experience on a day-to-day basis, but which in fact contains a totally uncomprehendable fantasy element. Blurring this boundary between what they know and what they cannot possibly know defies believability for a filmgoer. As long as the filmic world remains consistent to itself, and does not offer the viewer a bit of both worlds, fantasy and reality - then credibility can be found in almost any type of epic.

The epic relies on this factor and a good many other things.

People must die, and always people we like. Characters must seek vengence, and get it, and finally lose it. There's almost always a developing love, enveloping into a kiss, sometimes a marriage, always a lovers' tiff. There are animals, weapons, water, land, blood, tears and laughter - all of these things and all other things. You see - the thing about an epic is that it has to have a little bit of everything. That's what gives it scale and power. That's why we like it so much.


In every way, Australia, Baz Luhrmann's new epic, fulfilled all of these things. It's a fantastic film and I recommend you go see it soon. Doubtless everything appears more epic on the big screen than your TV, so don't wait for it to come out on DVD, splash the cash. And if you can't do that, wait for Orange Wednesdays.


To Do: Watch more epics.