Just turned over to watch some of the Baz Luhrmann film Australia, which I knew would be ridiculous, but it exceeds my expectations.
What on earth was this director thinking? Everything about the film screams "fake": the awful acting of poor Nicole Kidman, the sets, the story, the stampede, and (somehow) he even makes the Australian outback look fake - it looks and sounds more like a (particularly bad) 1940's American Western. It's a film weird in concept and execution. Any Australian critic who liked it is not to be trusted.
And looking back at what some American critics said about its treatment of aborigines - I see exactly what they mean.
3 comments:
The only thing I can think is that Luhrmann likes to celebrate the artificial and fake. But in the context of this film, yes, way over the top, completely misjudged, etc.
A few, very few scenes seemed to work. One or two tableaus which seemed to be based on 1940s/1950s children's book pictures of Australia.... that's about all.
It was a dreadful film. My wife wanted to see it and after even she said it was awful. I did warn her Luhrman was very superficial. He has destroyed operas!
I wondered what that was when my wife went to bed and left the tv on.
I thought it was something from the 60's and turned it off and went followed suit.
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