Australia (the movie) – ignore the critics. Don’t miss it.

If you haven’t yet seen Australia (the movie) what are you waiting for? If you miss it you’ll be sorry. Sure, you can see it on a wide screen TV when it comes out on DVD. But you really need to be in a cinema with other people. Not least because the need to control your emotions to avoid sobbing aloud will make you acutely aware of the power of this film.

Many people I have spoken to have hesitated when asked if they’ve seen Australia yet. They crease their brow and say, No, not yet. I’ve heard mixed reviews. As though mixed reviews means bad reviews. Surely the word mixed doesn’t mean the glass is empty. Even if it means the glass is half empty, it must mean it is half full. And it’s what’s in the glass – be it more or less half full – that makes it worth the ticket.

For those who don’t know what it’s about, it is set in the Northern Territory/Kimberley/Never Never in the late thirties and early World War II. The landscape however, is not just a setting. It is one of the protagonists of the story, and it is breath taking beyond imagining. A small cattle station, Faraway Downs is up against the ‘empire’ of King Carny (the fusion of carnal and grimy) which, being an empire, gets its way by trampling all others’ interests, from the Aborigines to the Government. The extent to which Aborigines were essential to the success of Whitefella operations, from grazing and marketing cattle to rounding up children of mixed blood, is not just a subplot. It is really what the story is all about. A young, as yet, uninitiated boy of mixed race, who is welcome neither in the white nor the Aboriginal worlds, misunderstands most of what he hears, yet integrates his misconceptions into who he is becoming to startling effect, such as when he single handedly stops a cattle stampede (more on this later). The boy’s grandfather is instrumental in the underdogs winning the contest with the ‘empire’ and is in gaol when Darwin is bombed and Australia (the nation) is changed forever. The bombing of Darwin, by the way, is a revelation. If the rest of the movie really is as bad as some critics say, the bombing of Darwin is itself reason to see the film. Australia (the people) has never really imagined this event - kept secret as it was at the time, and little talked about since then presumably because it pales before the bomings that ended the war. Well, at last, someone has imagined it, and it really is worth seeing. The English female aristocrat, whose experience of Australia (the society) has been formed by her relationship with the young boy and a drover in the struggle against the ‘empire’, emerges as one third of the team that represents post-war Australia (the vision). Another third is the drover whose lifelong relationship with Aborigines has alienated him from the vassals of the ‘empire’ but given him the wisdom to truly prosper in the landscape. The young boy and his grandfather are reunited in the end so that he can be initiated into the law/lore of his people – the implication being that, when he returns to Faraway Downs - as the third person of the trinity - he will continue to interpret Whitefella world in a way that will help that world integrate into the ways of the landscape.

I’ve heard this film described as Australia’s Gone with the Wind. I’d describe it as Australia’s Sound of Music. Now be fair. Unless you were a seriously jaded malcontent in the sixties when SoM came out, you were swept off your feet by it like everyone else. It’s fashionable to scoff now, but back then we didn’t need permission to swoon at the thought of good triumphing over evil. How does Gone with the Wind end? With Red saying, Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. This film ends with everyone giving a damn – especially about the central issue of the story. That’s what I think the critics don’t like about it. We don’t like happy endings any more. We’ve come to expect that films have to be bleak and hopeless – literally.

I should say something about the film’s ‘production values’. We have grown accustomed to films made on the smell of an abandoned sardine tin. That alone might put some people off when they see extravagance of this film. At times it’s like watching Disney as Disney has never imagined itself. And early in the film there are clichés that might make even the most uncritical ultra-nationalist squirm. But hey! When this film was being made Kevin Rudd was not yet the leader of the opposition - let alond Prime Minister - and John Howard looked as though he was approaching the first decade of his thousand year Reich. In other words, the Australia (the polity) that Australia (the movie) sought to address, had given Pauline Hanson a go, swallowed ‘children overboard’ and heartily agreed that we owed no one an apology for anything. This film portrays the roots of that Australia (Howard’s ‘battlers’) and contrasts it with what might have been … indeed, what might yet be. So there is a reason for the very things that have been most criticised. Take that on board and enjoy the unfolding of the film maker’s intent.

To get back to the heroic if breathtakingly naïve action of Nullah, the young boy, who stops the stampeding herd metres before it would have gone over a cliff – and the awesome landscape in which this took place. No, of course such a thing wouldn’t have happened - if you think such things can't happen. But think Joshua making the sun stand still; trumpets making the walls of Jericho tumble; Jesus feeding five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. Did these things happen? If so why not a boy commanding a herd to be still? If not, what’s the point of such stories? And please! Take this question seriously. I wouldn’t have asked it if I wanted to hear someone say, What indeed?

Oh, and if I hear one more person say Nicole Kidman can’t act, I’ll … I’ll … ….. I’ll tell you that I don’t like Mel Gibson, and I even loathe his acting – in fact I think he plays the same character in every film I’ve ever seen him in, viz. Mel Gibson. The one exception is Hamlet, which would suggest that if I were to say that he can’t act, I’d be wrong. So if anyone says in my hearing, NK can’t act, I’ll ask, Really? How do you know? And I will hope for a credible answer. So far, I haven’t heard one.

My point? There’s a lot of fashionable crap gets talked about all sorts of things, especially this film. All I’m asking is that you do yourself a favour and give it a chance. If you end up hating it, sue me.