ZigzagAustralia

Excited by all the news and advertisement, last week it was our chance to watch the movie Australia. Now we can finally make up our own mind about all the comments in the newspapers.

In the past few days there were some critics about the movie, which question marked on one hand the acting talents of Nicole Kidman, on the other hand the theatrical style of the producer. We have to say there has been overkill on advertising, as you can see the two main actors in almost every show on television to promote the movie, and then we haven’t even talked about all the commercials and advertisements.    However this big excitement can be understood: it is the most expensive Australian movie ever made and the expectations are very high. The hope is not only to make a great movie, but to attract many tourists as well with all the beautiful landscapes.

But let’s go back to the movie. It is almost three hours long, but in contrast with the critics we weren’t bored at all. The start is maybe a bit slow, but if there is no action, the film is usually funny, sometimes romantic, but luckily this didn’t reach Titanic-like scales.

It is true, that Nicole Kidman is almost over acting at some moments, which doesn’t look very realistic. But it would be to much to say that this kills the movie.  I think she acts well, although it maybe isn’t her best role ever. The film is mainly carried by three other actors that make the film a success: Hugh Jackman and two aboriginal actors, the small boy Brendan Walters and his grandfather in the movie, David Gulpilil. It is really enjoyable to watch them through the whole movie.

Furthermore it is quite funny to listen to the strong Australian accent, that certainly gives the film more atmosphere, which unfortunately will be lost in synchronised translations.

Some scenes ended up being very theatrical, mainly due to the filming techniques. The film is recorded on amazing places, but quite often animation tricks take away your attention from this. For example when they are driving the cattle – several hundreds of cows are chased – through a really nice region, but it almost looks like a scene from a Disney movie.

I was looking forward to this movie, especially because of the locations. As I have read in several interviews, most of the scenes were shot around Bowen, Kununurra, Darwin and Kimberley; and this all of course in extreme dryness and hotness. You can see all of these locations in the movie, but they don’t get very much attention. You can read on other blogs and websites what the film is about, so we will keep this short. It plays around world war II, when an English aristocratic lady travels to Australia after her husband, to help him selling the cattle. When she finally arrives, she finds her husband murdered. It is only proud that makes her stay, to cope against the bad guys and drive the cattle through the desert on her own, helped by some outsiders. She faces all kind of struggles and at the end, when she finally brings the cattle to Darwin, the city gets bombed by the Japanese.  What is interesting about the movie, is that the ‘Stolen Generation’ gets a lot of attention, which actually deserves a few more movies dedicated to it, so the world learns a bit more about the fate of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent.

Aboriginal people live for about 40-60.000 years on this continent, which makes them the oldest continuing culture on earth. They don’t have written remnants or memories; all stories are told from father to son. These stories live on for thousands of years and play a very important role in daily life. There is a story for each natural appearance, tree, stone or star, which helps in navigating. People can go on large tours (walkabouts) without getting lost, by singing the stories for days. This can be seen as well in one of the most famous aboriginal movies; Ten Canoes.

From the end of the 19th century till about 1970 many aborigine children were taken away from their families. They were sent to white families, or put into church missions to be raised according to Christian standards. This is called the “Stolen Generation” .  For this generation the ties with their culture and families were broken.

p.s. The interesting tree with the very thick trunk you can see at the start of the movie and which is later used as Christmas tree is the so called ‘boab prison tree’, or baobab tree. It is family of the African baobab tree, it can hold a lot of water in its massive trunk and likes extended rocky environments like around Kimberley (Eyewitness Travel Guides-Australia). In the past they have been used to lock up the native inhabitants on their way to Derby, which is where the name “prison tree” comes from according to Wikipedia.