Movie Review: Australia

Australia (2008) 

Directed by Baz Luhrmann

Written by Baz Luhrmann 

Starring Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Bryan Brown 

Release Date November 26th, 2008

Published November 25th, 2008 

The modern audience is often accused of having a short attention span. It's undeniable of course that with half hour television and now bite size internet videos, the modern audience has shown a taste for constant stimulation. But that fact does not mean that a movie of a good length cannot succeed. I point you to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia which floats through 3 hours without ever loosing its grip on the audience.

If you have seen a double feature of Tarentino's Kill Bill, which clocks in at nearly 4 hours you know the power a great movie has to glue you to your seat. The modern attention span isn't the issue, it's the modern epic. The fact is, too often, these 'epics' are not lengthy with a purpose but lengthy due to directorial indulgence. That is most certainly the case with Baz Luhrmann's 'epic' Australia. An at times exceptional display of visual craftsmanship. Australia overstays its welcome with 3 different endings and dangling subplots.

Australia stars Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, a British aristocrat who comes to Australia to retrieve her husband who moved down under months earlier to make money in the cattle business. Convinced he has taken up with another woman, Lady Ashley plans on selling the cattle interest and taking her husband back to England.

Sadly, upon arriving at the ranch, called Faraway Downs, she finds her husband murdered, allegedly by an aboriginal mystic named King George. On the other hand she finds that the cattle biz is for real and with an evil land Barron named King Karney looking to steal her land for a quarter of what its worth, Lady Ashley decides to stay on and garner the profit herself.

To do so she will have to drive the cattle to the coastal town of Darwin. Thus she hires the rough and tumble Drover (Hugh Jackman) to lead the way. He needs help and doesn't have it. Aside from two aboriginal friends, there is a drunk accountant, two maids and Lady Ashley herself whose experience riding show horses is her only qualification.

Then there is Nullah. Half white, half black, 11 year old Nullah (Brandon Walters) lives in constant danger. The state has a policy of rounding up mixed race children so that they can 'breed the black out of them' and train them to be servants. Nullah has lived at Faraway Downs in secret for years after being born to a maid and a ranch hand named Fletcher (David Wenham).

Fletcher works for King Carney and cannot afford to have anyone know he fathered a mixed race child. All of this melodrama unfolds in the foreground as World War 2 emerges in the background. In newsreels and conversations we overhear Germany's march, Hitler's call for Japan to join the war and the attack on Pearl Harbor that will soon lead to attacks on the Australian mainland where Americans begin arriving for an assault on Japan.

It's a sprawling, ambitious story that director Baz Luhrmann no doubt loves. It's also a flabby, unkempt mess of competing plots that amount to three different movies forced together. The first movie, playing out as act 1, is a tribute to old Hollywood, just after the introduction of color. Luhrmann uses CGI to give Australia the coloring of a movie made in the 1930's. The effort may dazzle lovers of classic film. But, modern audiences are likely to mistake the look for bad CGI.

At the death of Lady Ashley's husband Australia becomes a gripping western. The cattle drive scenes are the movies best moments with Jackman looking quite the hero, Brandon Walters delivering the compelling drama and Kidman holding her own in the saddle. Had Australia stuck with the western aspect, with a tighter narrative focus, we could be talking about a pretty good movie.

Unfortunately, the western is merely the second act. The third act brings World War 2 and Australia's disturbing racial politics into to the forefront and begins to drift. Trained moviegoers know that the 3rd act requires the lovers to separate and for good to turn to bad so that it can be righted in the end and Australia delivers it all in rote, mind numbing fashion.

Oh, did I mention that the film ends THREE TIMES! There are two false endings. Two spots where director Luhrmann could have ended the movie with a minimum of consternation. But no. Two endings stall and start and stall again only to drive one to the point of walking out by starting up one more time. I get what the director was going for but by the second ending I was almost to the door of the theater.

Australia is likely a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Four screenwriters contribute to a movie that feels like three movies in both length and structure. It is rumored that Luhrmann only completed the final edit of Australia 2 weeks prior to worldwide release. That might explain the rushed necessity of a 2 hour 45 minute cut of a story that can only sustain maybe 2 hours, at most.

Tedious, overlong, flabby, Australia has the look of an epic and the feeling of a butt numbing disaster.

Movie Review Romeo and Juliet (1996)

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

Directed by Baz Luhrmann 

Written by Craig Pearce, Baz Luhrmann 

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, John Leguizamo, Brian Dennehy, Paul Sorvino

Release Date November 1st, 1996 

Published November 1st, 2016 

It’s fair to call Baz Luhrmann’s modernized take on Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet a Romeo for the MTV generation. Though today such a pronouncement could seem insulting, in 1996 Luhrmann’s vision of the Bard’s work had everything that a great music video would including quick cut action, lots of colors, a pair of teen idol lead actors and an unbelievably good soundtrack.

Two Households at war 

It’s a tale told in fair Verona Beach or, in reality, Miami standing in for the Shakespearean city. Two households are at war, the Capulets lead by Fulgencio (Paul Sorvino) and the Montagues headed up by Ted (Brian Dennehy). No one seems exactly sure why there is war between them but as this story begins, thugs from both sides engage in a shootout that ends in a massive conflagration.

Captain Prince (Vondie Curtis Hall), the head of Verona law enforcement, has seen enough, he wants peace and is ready to take extreme measures. Meanwhile, young Romeo walks the beach in devastation, his beloved Rosalyne having forsaken him. Thankfully, his cousin Benvolio and best friend Mercutio (Harold Perrineau) have sport to cheer him.

What light through yonder window breaks

Mercutio has obtained tickets to a costume party at Capulet mansion and as long as everyone stays in their masks it should be a fine feast. At the party Romeo spies Juliet through the glass of a fish tank and is immediately smitten. He is already in love by the time he finds out that she is Juliet Capulet, the daughter of his family enemy. Juliet has also fallen for Romeo despite his name and the seal it with a dip in the Capulets pool and a kiss.

The following day the two decide to marry and Romeo’s friend Father Lawrence (Pete Postlethwaite thinks the wedding may be a chance to bring peace to the family and the un-civil war. He conducts the wedding but there is tragedy to come, one that will separate the young lovers and further complications involving a mislaid letter that could mean doom.

Stylistically jarring 

It’s a classic story and Baz Luhrmann’s telling it has a new, stylistically jarring life. The film begins with Shakespeare’s classic epilogue as told by a news reporter on TV. Then Pete Postlethwaite picks up the same dialogue in voice over and then in a bold move, the same words are incorporated into the film’s experimental score.

From there we are thrust down into the streets of Verona Beach where Shakespeare’s immortal words are spoken by common street thugs wielding Sword brand 9mm handguns. The Montagues and Capulets meet in combat in the urban setting of a Grand Theft Auto video game but all the while speaking with Shakespeare’s tongue.

Radiohead, Garbage and Prince 

It’s all quite jarring at first but when the music of Radiohead kicks in as we are introduced to Leonardo DiCaprio as Romeo, things begin to settle in and we are quickly invested in this highly unique retelling of a classic love story. There are times when the classic Shakespearean turns of phrase are incomprehensible to the modern ear but the meaning is well conveyed by the exemplary cast, as it would be if Luhrmann had not chosen to modernize the setting.

Leonardo DiCaprio had not yet become a global icon when he starred in Romeo +Juliet. He was less than a year from becoming ‘the King of the world’ as Jack Dawson in Titanic but his star was certainly on the rise. “Romeo + Juliet” was indeed the perfect table setter for his breakout in Titanic. Romeo offered just the right mix of serious acting and teen idol mooning needed for the establishment of global icon status.

Claire Danes has never found the stardom that DiCaprio has achieved since “Romeo + Juliet” but onscreen she is every bit the star DiCaprio is. With her wide expressive eyes, beautiful smile and delicate delivery, Danes was a marvelous Juliet and when Juliet takes hold of a gun as she does more than once during “Romeo + Juliet” it is a stunning counterpoint to her nuanced beauty.

The music of Romeo + Juliet acts as the third lead character in the film. Baz Luhrmann and his music team did yeoman’s work to mix movie score and pop songs in ways few had ever done before. While many will remember the hit song “Lovefool” by the Cardigans the stand out for me while watching the film this week was Des’ree’s haunting love theme “Kissing You.”

The hit soundtrack also includes music from popular 90’s rockers Everclear and Garbage and, as briefly mentioned earlier, experimental rockers Radiohead whose song “Talk Show Host” serves as Romeo’s theme. There are also, ever so brief, musical intrusions by Massive Attack and most famously a remix of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” sung beautifully by a church choir.

Romeo and Juliet for the MTV generation 

Yes, this was “Romeo + Juliet” for the MTV generation and as horrific as such pronouncement seems today; it was slightly less of an insult at the time. In 1996 MTV still had certain culture relevance then. In 1996 you could turn on MTV and actually watch a music video. It was before Britney and the Backstreet Boys took music back to the dark ages.

Connecting Shakespeare and the MTV generation was a stroke of genius on the part of Baz Luhrmann. He brought these two portions of world culture together in ways that no one thought possible. Baz Luhrmann made Shakespeare significant to an audience that otherwise might have thought his work was staid and dusty, something that teachers forced them to read but had no relevance to their lives.

A place in history lost

Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” somehow never gained the mainstream acceptance it so richly deserved. Though it was a worldwide hit, earning more than 140 million dollars on a budget of a paltry 14 million dollars, its place in pop culture history was quickly consumed by another re-telling of Shakespeare’s doomed lovers’ tale, James Cameron’s “Titanic.”