“Australia” is an epic and romantic action adventure, set in that country on the explosive brink of World War II.
Australia movie storyline. An English aristocrat inherits a ranch the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle driver to drive 2000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country’s most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.
Set in Australia on the explosive brink of World War II. In it, an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) travels to the faraway continent, where she meets a rough-hewn local (Hugh Jackman) and reluctantly agrees to join forces with him to save the land she inherited. Together, they embark upon a transforming journey across hundreds of miles of the world’s most beautiful yet unforgiving terrain, only to still face the bombing of the city of Darwin by the Japanese forces that attacked Pearl Harbor.
Australia is a 2008 Australian-British-American romantic historical adventure drama film directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It is the third-highest grossing Australian film of all time, behind Crocodile Dundee and Mad Max: Fury Road. The screenplay was written by Luhrmann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie, with Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan.
The film is a character story, set between 1939 and 1942 against a dramatised backdrop of events across northern Australia at the time, such as the bombing of Darwin during World War II. Production took place in Sydney, Darwin, Kununurra, and Bowen. The film was released to cinemas on 26 November 2008 in both the United States[4] and Australia, with subsequent worldwide release dates throughout late December 2008 and January and February 2009. Australia received mixed reviews from critics and it earned $211.3 million on a $130 million budget.
The Faraway Of The Faraway
An epic tale of transformation, love and adventure, AUSTRALIA unfolds on the continent that director Baz Luhrmann sees as the world’s last great frontier. “To the rest of the world, Australia is the faraway of the faraway,” he says. “There’s a great line in the beginning of `Out of Africa,’ when Karen Blixen finds out that her husband is having an affair and she says, `I’ve got to get away, I’ll go anywhere. Africa, Australia…well, maybe not Australia.’”
Luhrmann grew up in a small lumber town in northern New South Wales, where his family ran a farm, the local gas station and, for a short time, the movie theater. “The movie musical was a great childhood love of mine, but I was also a big fan of the historical epic,” he says. “Epics were the kind of movies that you would hear about for weeks before the films actually arrived, and every single person in town would go to see them. You can imagine the impression made on a small boy in rural Australia by films like `Lawrence of Arabia’ and `Ben Hur’ – big, romantic adventures set in distant, exotic locales where the landscape amplified the inner emotional journeys of the characters.”
Particularly appealing to Luhrmann was the idea of creating an epic film set in his homeland that, like the classics that so influenced him in childhood, would have broad appeal across all generations of people around the world. “When watching these kinds of films, from `Gone with the Wind’ and `Ben-Hur’ to `Lawrence of Arabia’ and `Titanic,’ the audience was communing in one big motion picture experience,” he observes. “I wanted to create a cinematic work that would be similarly inclusive because I feel passionately about having more inclusiveness in our lives. Bringing people together brings comfort to the heart and soul in this unpredictable world.”
In the tradition of films like “Casablanca,” “Titanic” and “Oklahoma,” Luhrmann’s AUSTRALIA is a metaphor for the feelings of mystery, romance and excitement conjured by a distant, exotic place where people can transform their lives, spirits can be reborn, and love conquers all.
“This is the film I’ve wanted to make since I was a little girl,” says Nicole Kidman. “I grew up watching Australian actresses like Judy Davis in `My Brilliant Career’ and Angela Punch McGregor in `We of the Never Never’ playing wonderful characters in stories set in our country, and I dreamed of making a film here that had the passion and weight of those movies.”
“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,” Hugh Jackman says. “I hadn’t done an Australian movie in eight years, so to come back and make a film of this magnitude, scale and ambition – using my own accent! – was a dream come true. Dream role, dream movie, dream cast, dream director.”
Jackman, who has known Kidman for many years (he is married to a good friend of hers), was impressed from the outset by the actress’ passion for the project and her trust in Luhrmann. “Nicole was at my house for a Super Bowl party,” he remembers. “Baz had just called me about the project, and I asked Nicole if she had read this script. She said no. I said, `Oh, Baz said you were doing it.’ She said, `I am.’ I said, `But you haven’t even read the script!’ She said `You don’t need to read the script, just do it. It’s going to be amazing. You’ll never have a better job in your life.’”
“If Baz asked me to say one line in something, I would say yes,” Kidman attests. “I believe in him. I believe in his talent. I believe in his commitment to putting beauty in the world and to his pursuit of excellence. It’s a privilege to work with someone you feel completely safe with, someone who is bold and innovative and uncompromising. I won’t lie and say it’s easy, because it’s not. It’s really hard. But when you make a big story there’s going to be hardship attached to it. We understood that from beginning, and I’m glad to be along for the ride.”
The story of AUSTRALIA is set in motion by Kidman’s Lady Sarah Ashley, a headstrong British socialite lost in a loveless marriage and a staid, superficial life. “At the age of 40, Sarah has poured herself into objects of perfection and control,” Luhrmann says. “The only thing that she truly loves are her horses.”
Convinced that her husband is cheating on her during his trip to Australia to sell Faraway Downs, their struggling cattle ranch, Sarah travels from London to the rugged wilderness of the Northern Territory to confront him. The truth proves to be as harsh as her new environs, and it propels Sarah on a journey of profound self-discovery.
“When she first arrives in Australia, Sarah is as uptight as Katherine Hepburn’s character in `The African Queen,’” says Luhrmann. “She is closed off to life and to love. But at Faraway Downs and beyond, she is forced to engage with the landscape and with the people, and she experiences a rebirth of spirit. She is completely transformed by the journey.”
Faraway Downs is an immense property the size of Maryland, situated in the unforgiving Outback and populated by an eclectic mix of cattlemen, servants and indigenous tribesmen. “It’s the antithesis to anything Sarah has ever experienced,” Kidman says. “But during the course of the story, she sheds a lot of the barriers that she’s built up to protect herself. She becomes the woman she truly wants to be, and she finds love – for a child, for a man and for the land.”
Sarah surprises herself and others around her when as she rises to the challenges of her new life and responsibilities, but nothing and no one challenges her more than the Drover. As rugged as Sarah is refined, the Drover is the best of a breed of man who drive herds of cattle across hundreds of miles of brutal, unforgiving terrain. As Jackman explains, “A good drover will get your cattle to market in better condition than when they left. When you consider the size of the herds and the vast landscape they travel through, that is no small feat.”
The Drover is a superb horseman who prefers to live under the sun and stars, a nomad and a solitary man. “He’s more comfortable out there with his horse and the cattle than he is with people,” says Jackman. “He’s his own man. He doesn’t want to be beholden to anybody, which is why someone like Lady Ashley presents quite a few problems for him.”
Sparks fly – in all the wrong directions – from the moment these two extremely contrary characters cross paths. Sarah is haughty and dismissive of the Drover, and he is equally irritated by Sarah and all that she represents. “The Drover hates the wealthy, land-owning Establishment, and Sarah is the poster girl for the aristocracy,” Jackman says. “He takes delight in shocking and teasing her, because everything about her annoys him. She’s arrogant, pretentious, frustrating and impossible.”
Despite their differences, Sarah and the Drover need each other – and the money they’ll earn if they can pull off a near-impossible drove of 1,500 cattle across the Kuraman Desert to market in Darwin. As the combative pair ready their misfit team of ranch hands and homesteaders to embark on the daunting expedition, tragedy strikes. A young Aboriginal boy called Nullah is left orphaned, and Sarah is thrust into a role that she had long ago given up hope of ever experiencing. “Caring for the boy awakens something in Sarah, and she finds unexpected strength and confidence as a mother,” Kidman says.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Nullah is a “half-caste,” or a half- Aboriginal, half-Caucasian child. In the segregated society of Australia in the 1930s and 40s, interracial marriage was illegal, and the children of illicit bi-racial relationships were forbidden from living among whites or with their Indigenous families. In a misguided attempt to lift these children out of poverty and offer them the possibility of a more rewarding future by distancing them from their Indigenous communities, the Australian government launched a nationwide program in which the children were taken from their families and placed in church missions or state institutions.
Part-Aboriginal children in particular were deemed as “salvageable” and removed from their traditional culture in an attempt to re-educate them. These children have come to be known as the “Stolen Generations” and, while statistics are murky, it is believed that between one-tenth and one-third of all Indigenous boys and girls were taken from their parents and relocated. “This is the world into which Nullah is born,” Luhrmann notes. “He is both black and white in a world that cannot tolerate having such individuals integrated into their society. Ultimately, Sarah defies the social order and gives him a home. In turn, Nullah is the catalyst that opens Sarah’s heart and brings her and the Drover together.”
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Australia (2008)
Directed by: Baz Luhrmann
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, Bryan Brown, Nathin Butler, Damian Bradford, Essie Davis, Lillian Crombie, Michelle Dyzla, Arthur Dignam, Max Cullen
Screenplay by: Baz Luhrmann
Production Design by: Catherine Martin
Cinematography by: Mandy Walker
Film Editing by: Dody Dorn, Michael McCusker
Costume Design by: Catherine Martin
Set Decoration by: Beverley Dunn
Art Direction by: Ian Gracie, Karen Murphy
Music by: David Hirschfelder
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence, a scene of sensuality, and brief strong language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: November 26, 2008
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