AUSTRALIA APOLOGIZES TO ITS NATIVE POPULATION WITH SIMPLISTIC MELODRAMA
Titles at the beginning and of Australia frame the film as an apology to the aboriginal population, which until 1973 lived under an assimilationist policy that for many years kidnapped the young to live with whites, creating what has been called the “stolen generation.” The government of 2008 formally apologized to the native Australian population. However, rather than focusing on the multitude of aboriginal blacks, the film centers on the cattle industry in which King Carney (played by Bryan Brown) has a near monopoly, challenged only by one small company run by the Ashleys. When the movie begins, Lady Sara Ashley (played by Nicole Kidman) leaves England because of a rumor about her husband’s libertinism, but he dies before she arrives, leaving her the heir in possession of valuable land and cattle. As the rivalry plays out, there is plenty of intrigue, a love story, the Japanese bombing of Darwin in World War II, and a prominent role for twelve-year-old Nullah (played by Brandon Walters) whose birth mother and birthfather are of aboriginal and European ancestry, respectively. Directed by Baz Luhrmann, Australia’s 165 minutes may offer some filmviewers little more than cardboard characters of the sort that the director provided in Moulin Rouge! (2001). MH