She grows to love the boy and emotionally adopts him. Nullah is under constant threat of being swept up by the local police, enforcing a national policy of "capturing" part-white aboriginal children and taking them to missions where they can "have the black bred out of them" and trained to be servants. Incredibly, this practice was ended by Australia only in 1973. And you think we were slow to change.
All the elements are in place for a cross between "GWTW" and "Red River," with an infusion of "Rabbit-Proof Fence" (2002) and World War II. Luhrmann, known for his close work with the camera, pulls back here to show the magnificent landscape and the enormity of the cattle drive. The cattle are supplied mostly by CGI, which explains how they can seem to stampede toward a high cliff. No doubt some will find this scene hokey, but it also provides the movie's dramatic high point, with Nullah channeling the teachings of his grandfather.
It's a great scene, but it also dramatizes the film's uncertainty about race. Luhrmann is rightly contemptuous of Australia's "re-education" policies; he shows Nullah taking pride in his heritage and paints the white enforcers as the demented racists they were. But "Australia" also accepts aboriginal mystical powers lock, stock and barrel, and that I think may be condescending.
Well, what do you believe? Can the aboriginal people materialize wherever they desire? Become invisible? Are they telepaths? Can they receive direct guidance from the dead? Yes, certainly, in a spiritual or symbolic sense. But in a literal sense? If Nullah is prescient at some times, then why does he turn into a scared little boy who needs rescuing? The Australians, having for decades treated their native people as subhuman, now politely endow them with godlike qualities. I am not sure that is a compliment. What they suffered, how they survived, how they prevailed and what they have accomplished, they have done as human beings, just as we all must.
The film is filled with problems caused by its acceptance of mystical powers. If Nullah is all-seeing and prescient at times, then why does he turn into a scared little boy who needs rescuing? The climactic events require action sequences as thrilling as they are formulaic, as is the love story. Scarlett and Rhett were products of the same society. Lady Sarah and Drover meet across a divide that separates not only social class but lifestyle, education and geography. Such a gap can be crossed, but not during anything so simple as a moonlit night with "Over the Rainbow" being played on a harmonica.
"GWTW," for all its faults and racial stereotyping, at least represented a world its makers believed in. "Australia" envisions a world intended largely as fable, and that robs it of some power. Still, what a gorgeous film, what strong performances, what exhilarating images and -- yes, what sweeping romantic melodrama. The kind of movie that is a movie, with all that the word promises and implies.
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