AUSTRALIA (2008) - Baz Luhrmann

If Baz Luhrmann will be remembered for one thing, it will be for the striking visual style he injects into his films. While Luhrmann has only so far directed four films, he has become known as a director of big, epic, romantic films. Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! were highly successful films that pitted two people from opposite backgrounds who find love despite the odds. Not much has changed with Luhrmann’s latest, an epic tale of romance set against the backdrop of World War 2 and how it affected Darwin and the nation of Australia.

Lady Sarah Ashley is married to a wealthy landowner who is living in Australia looking after his cattle ranch. Lady Ashley travels to Australia to oversee the sale of Faraway Downs. She is met in Darwin by Drover, a tough Australia cattle drover who will escort Lady Ashley to Faraway Downs. When Lady Ashley arrives at Faraway Downs, she finds her husband murdered, supposedly at the hands of an Aboriginal man named King George. Her land is under threat from Neil Fletcher, a man once employed by her husband. Fletcher wants the land for himself. Lady Ashley has little choice but to drive 2000 cattle across the Northern Territory to Darwin. She takes with her a half-Aboriginal boy named Nullah and enlists the help of a reluctant Drover.



When I was sitting watching the opening scenes of Australia, I found myself watching a film I wasn’t really prepared for. I had prepared myself for something more... serious. But having thought about it, the film fits in exactly with Baz Luhrmann’s style. While the film deals with serious matters, the film feels like it belongs to another era. It feels like it’s a film that was made in the forties or fifties, but with today’s technology and budgets. Which is what I guess Luhrmann was going for. The film does have the feel of a John Huston epic. There are huge, open vistas, a rich romantic plot and clearly defined heroes and villains. There’s no room for ambiguity here.

However, Australia is quite a flawed epic. While Romeo + Juliet and in particular, Moulin Rouge! were quite solid films, Australia falls down a few areas. It’s a long film. Very long. And in areas, you can’t help feeling that the film would have benefited from a bit of editing in the script stage. One thing that Luhrmann could really have cut back on is cliché. The film lathers on the schmaltz very thickly and thus, falls into a few obvious cheese traps. From the opening few scenes, you pretty much know exactly where the story is going, and surprises are few and far between. Having said that, the film doesn’t suffer really badly from these faults. If you can overlook these problems, the epic nature of the film will suck you in.



Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman are cast as the two lovers from opposite worlds, Lady Ashley and the man known only as Drover. Each of them are suitably different that it’s believable they’re from opposite worlds. Nicole Kidman’s not an actress I’d rush to see. It seems the woman has no soul. It was hard to see her as a romantic lead since her last few films have required her to be cold. However here, she’s a lot easier to warm to. Jackman, on the other hand, once again delivers a great performance. While the film doesn’t require the depth Jackman has shown in The Prestige or The Fountain, Jackman can play tough and he does so here. But the real heart and soul of the film lies in the character Nullah, played by newcomer, Brandon Walters. Walters is the incredibly optimistic and playful Aboriginal child who brings and ties Lady Ashley and Drover together. It’s a great performance from the kid and is the soul of the film.

While Australia is flawed, it’s still very entertaining. It’s huge, epic and hopelessly romantic. And while some of the special effects are a little poor, this is due to the constraints of making a film outside the Hollywood studio system. We’re too used to spit and polish and poor story, but Australia overcomes these minor flaws to remain faithful to it’s goal. Australia looks gorgeous and it’s full of compelling if somewhat clichéd characters. It’s not quite as good as Luhrmann’s other work. But it’s still great to watch.


7/10

THE GOLDEN COMPASS (2007) - Chris Weitz

Since the release of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, studios have been falling over themselves to release movies that capture the magic that Peter Jackson’s movies did so well. To the studios, these movies bring in mega bucks since they’re aimed at the family, the most lucrative of cinema audiences. To this end, they find any piece of fantasy fiction and immediately rush it into production. Unfortunately, the time and care that Jackson put into The Lord of the Rings isn’t always applied to these other movies, and the resulting films always seem to lack something. And this is blatantly apparent in Chris Weitz adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel, Northern Lights. Or The Golden Compass, as the movie is known.

The Golden Compass takes Pullman’s incredibly popular novel, the first his ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, and translates it to the big screen. Dealing with many different (and in some places, controversial) themes, this first movie concentrates on a precocious little girl named Lyra Belacqua. Lyra lives in a parallel universe to our own. A universe where peoples’ souls accompany them in the form of a animal who can communicate, and lives in harmony with his or her human counterpart. Lyra attends Jordan College. After her uncle, a scientist named Lord Asriel leaves for an expedition to investigate the possibility of parallel universes, Lyra comes into possession of an alethiometer, or golden compass which can answer any question Lyra cares to ask it. This alethiometer is something the Magesterium, the overlords wish to possess. To this end, they send Mrs. Coulter to take Lyra away from Jordan. Lyra doesn’t trust Mrs. Coulter and escapes her. She sets off to find her lost friends, who have been taken by Gobblers, who’s sinister plans put the entire world in peril.



That is basically the plot of the Golden Compass. Sounds kind of convoluted, doesn’t it? And in a way, it is. It’s not a difficult film to follow, but there’s a lot to take in. And the plot is fired at the audience so fast that you cant help but feel the film is an incredibly rushed effort. I’ve heard some great things about Pullman’s Dark Materials books, and I do intend to read them. This film really didn’t put me off doing that. However, it’s a badly made film.

As mentioned, the plot is incredibly rushed through. Events pass at a pace that makes you want to shout out at everybody to slow down for a moment at take a breath. But this isn’t a good thing. Everything seems skirted over. And to that end, there’s no sense of dread of events that are perilous for the world. Nothing seems incredibly important, and you just feel that things just keep happily falling into place. Characters pop into the story, and just seem to join Lyra on her quest for no other reason but having nothing better to do. And this is the major flaw of The Golden Compass. Things happen too fast and too easily with no sense of peril if things go wrong.



The direction, from Weitz, who (with his brother, Paul) struck box office gold with American Pie and the surprisingly good About A Boy, seems out of his depth. At moments, the camera makes bizarre swoops and the action cuts to odd angles, and it seems that Weitz is doing this just to add the feeling of something epic to otherwise small worldly events. The pace of the film is bizarrely slow for a film where events pass so quickly, and you will, at moments, find yourself very, very bored. The special effects aren’t bad. I mean, for a film of this magnitude, you’d expect the special effects to be spiffy, and while they’re not groundbreaking by any measure, they’re not terrible. As with the rest of the film, they’re just spectacularly mundane.

The acting isn’t terrible. Dakota Blue Richards (who sounds like some sort of country and western singer) isn’t as bad an actress as the trailer for the movie made her out to be. However, her character is incredibly smug and irritating. I don’t know if she is like this in the book, but in this film, you cant help but find yourself wishing, at moments, that she’d just lose! Daniel Craig pops up for about 6 minutes of screen time as Lord Azriel, and while he’s perfectly acceptable in the role, he has little to nothing to do. Nicole Kidman is in ice-queen mode as Mrs. Coulter. As with most of her roles, Kidman is pretty bland. This, I expect, is the point of the role. But for the film’s ‘bad guy,’ you just don’t detest her enough for her to make an impact. Sam Elliot is really imaginatively cast as an American gun-slinger cum airship pilot. And Sir Ian McKellan resurrects his Gandalf voice for his role as Iorek Byrnison, an ice-bear prince who dedicates his life to Lyra. Oh yeah, Eva Green pops up for a moment as a witch who you feel should be more consequential to the plot, but isn’t. There are other cameos from famous names such as Derek Jacobi and Christopher Lee, but again, their roles are pretty pointless.

The most disappointing thing about The Golden Compass is that you know there’s something to the story. The source material must be jam-packed with glorious detail. I’ve heard wonderful things about the books and I do look forward to them. But the film is stripped of all this. It just all seems rather pointless. And having heard there are themes of atheism that really got the Christians railed up, my interest is piqued even more. However, all this controversial material is removed from the film, and what is left is a really bland, uninspiring, and ultimately boring family film.


4/10