Waltzing Matilda

Can I just say,

Australia- the movie, was Brilliant.
I loved it. I loved it cos it warmed my heart, and made me clutch my hand to my chest and sigh more than once. I loved it cos it was visually STUNNING. It was a postcard in every frame. Please- scenes of untamed horses circling the ranch, like wild mustang on the Appalachian...WOW. Ok so it wasn't North America, it was the Outback. Faraway Downs to be exact.

It reminded alot of my time on Wattle Downs, about which I did a post recently (relating to horse escapades). There is a romanticism about the Outback..its vastness, its emptiness, its quietness. You become so aware of how expendable you are as a human being as you make every drop of your water count, and as you literally watch your skin singe (thank goodness for aloe vera back on the farm). But at the same time, it's an out of body experience the way you shut yourself off from civilisation and are at the mercy of nature. To play on Huxley's line: What nature has joined, Man is powerless to put asunder. You have NOWHERE to run. It's a terrible kind of beauty.

I loved Australia because of its spirit of adventure, and frontier. It was a Western. But it also felt like watching the first Indiana Jones again in some ways, and that's always a good thing. Don't you love swashbuckling adventures? Jack Sparrow/Indy Jones-related or otherwise?

I loved it because it was about making an honest living. It was also honest in a palatable way, the way it portrayed Australia's uncomfortable history with racism against the indigenous people and the story of the Stolen Generations. Nullah, the the mixed-race "Creamy" as he was called, was exceptional. If his liquid eyes don't get you, his talk of song and dreaming will.

Just as Nullah eventually had to go on his Walkabout, my time will come. My rite of passage nears.

And then there's Hugh Jackman.
WHAT A MAN.
He's bewitching on screen. The five o' clock shadow/three day old beard, his ripped torso, the way his hair falls..the way he rode his horse like a pro, the way he cracked his whip, the way he broke the horses. And then he just HAD to appear clean-shaven in a white suit :D oh my GOD, i couldn't stop gushing. I was a pile of mush by the end of the movie. No one on the corner has a swagger like Hugh :)

Nicole Kidman is cold, and it feels like she tries too hard to be funny, or motherly or a lover or brave. Even as Satine in Moulin Rouge, she is only convincing when she plays someone aloof and inaccessible...and at times, delicate.

Baz Luhrmann films work for me. Always have and probably always will. He has andrew lloyed webber sensibilities about musical theatre, the ability to appreciate fantasy and the passion of a kid..unbridled and unedited, just the way i like it.

They showed the X-Men Origins: Wolverine trailer right before the movie started. I have yet to meet someone who doesn't like Wolverine, or Hugh Jackman for that matter. Ok let's just leave Hugh out of this for a bit. X-Men. I frickin grew up watching X-men in the 90's..along with TMNT, Beast Wars and Batman. The one in which Wolverine wore a yellow and black suit, and his counterparts were Cyclops, Jean Grey/Phoenix, Beast, Jubilee, Rogue, Storm, and Professor X. But my favourite was Gambit, the card-slinging, Southern mutant who was a hit with the Laydeees. He's in the Wolverine movie :D Finally, some representation. I can't bloody wait.

Let Australia be remembered as the first movie Ven and I watched together after having know each other for almost ten years.