Australia (2008)

Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008)

In Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996), the oft-repeated and replicated Shakespearean romance, including the famous playwright's hefty Victorian grammar and vocabulary, is lifted from the streets of medieval Verona into the contemporary Verona, an anonymous suburb in the middle of the United States. The gimmick effectively creates an illusion of heightened romanticism within the confines of present-day America, where undying pledges of love and prolonged vendettas are uncommon, thus, making movie-going romantics swoon despite the improbability of Luhrmann's experimentation. In Moulin Rouge! (2001), Luhrmann infuses another love-against-all-odds tale set in 1899 Paris between an impoverished poet and an in-demand courtesan with contemporary pop and rock songs. It feels like a hyperactive and sometimes incoherent mess: an overproduced MTV where women dance in tight corsets and men sing in bright trenchcoats. For me, it's a guilty pleasure.

Baz Luhrmann's directing style involves a lot of pomp, a lot of spectacle, a lot of unabashed lavishness. His films are enjoyable precisely because it skirts realism for grandiosity, converting what typically would be commonplace tales in commonplace settings into invites to an alternate universe where humanity is driven by passion (more often than not, in insanely large doses), enough for dancers to equate ballroom dancing with love and life (in Strictly Ballroom (1992)); or for young lovers to utter declarations of love in old English; or for turn-of-the-century Parisians to belt out hits by Madonna, Bono, the Beatles, among others.

Australia, Luhrmann's latest, is tame compared to his previous excesses. There are no musical interludes, no outdated verbose dialogues, no fierce dance-offs to salvage what essentially are two-dimensional characters interacting in borrowed storylines. Instead, Luhrmann mines from what seems to be an immense national pride, casting two of the continent's most internationally familiar faces in another love story that defies all odds set during a pertinent portion of Australia's history. As a result, Australia suffers from an unwieldy heft: a need to be epic in scope because of its desire to be relevant.

Hence, the film's central romance is fitted right in the middle of the impending Pacific War and the plight of the stolen generations, sons and daughters of aboriginal mothers and White fathers who are forced out of their families by the church in order to cleanse them of their so-called savage lineage (Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) offers a sincerer and more accurate depiction of these stolen generations). To convince her husband to sell their cattle ranch, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from her leisurely estate in England to Faraway Downs in the middle of the Australian wildernesses, only to find out that her husband has been murdered, and their ranch is nearly bankrupt under the management of Neil Fletcher (David Wenham), who double agents for King Carney, owner of the largest cattle ranch in the continent. In order to reverse the misfortunes of Faraway Downs, Sarah Ashley is forced to drive her ranch's best cattle into the port town of Darwin to win the contract with the government to supply beef to the war-ready army. Along the way, she becomes surrogate mother to Nullah (Brandon Walters), half-breed son of Fletcher and an aboriginal woman, and falls deeply in love with Drover (Hugh Jackman), who agrees to help her drive her cattle to Darwin.

The problem is Luhrmann does not have the requisite discipline or integrity to mount such an exercise. The immensely overt emotionality is in fact, shallow. Its historical deft feels highly artificial, more like a backdrop rather than a genuine interest. The sensuality is almost non-existent, with Luhrmann floundering on attempts to pump the romance with amorous verve. With Australia, Luhrmann's excesses feel more like padding than style and quirk. It's still sometimes entertaining, but to be sure, Australia is just hardly the film it was imagined to be.

Ten Canoes (2006)

Ten Canoes (Rolf de Heer & Peter Djigirr, 2006)

The title is derived from a black and white photograph by Dr. Donald Thompson, an anthropologist who studied the aborigines of the Arafura Swamp in the mid 30's. The photograph which was shown to director Rolf de Heer by iconic aboriginal actor David Gulpilil showcases aboriginal men aboard canoes made out of the bark of trees, presumably on an expedition to hunt geese and their eggs.

The film, through the expert eyes of cinematographer Ian Jones, would mimic the serene beauty of those photographs. De Heer would make sure that there would be a still moment; a moment of understated simplistic beauty that can attest to the undervalued magnificence of this culture --- men atop makeshift platforms, a tense posture before the releasing of a hunting spear, men aboard their canoes patiently observing the swamp for geese or crocodiles.

The goosehunt would take a number of days and several men from different camps, presenting an opportunity to tell an ancient story. The story, about a warrior, his three wives, and his wife-less and jealous younger brother, is told from an older brother to his wife-less younger brother, who he suspects is jealous of his three wives. The story is patiently narrated; composed of sprinkles of native mythology yet more importantly, an invaluable lesson to the younger brother. Paced within their mundane hunt, de Heer visualizes the ancient tale in full color and from that tale, even mini-tales (stemming from the highly imaginative minds of the aborigines) burst into life.

Ten Canoes is undeniably gorgeous. The shifting from black and white to color, the convincing details of the Arafura Swamp, the rare portrait to this underappreciated culture --- all these are painted by de Heer with loving and respecting artistry. However, beyond the undeniably good filmmaking, is the even better storytelling. There would be times in the film wherein I would close my eyes, and satisfiedly digest David Gulpilil's jovial narration. The lack of visuals didn't hurt the experience as mixed with the atmospheric sound details (the insects, water, plants aural contributions) and the screenplay's method of appropriating the importance of oral tradition in storytelling would nonetheless complete everything. Ten Canoes is a film wherein the visuals are secondary or merely complementary to the narrative; it's quite very unique.

It is not exoticized; instead, the tale is appreciative of cultural differences. The narrator makes a joke right in the beginning, convincing us that the tale is from a faraway land and from long ago, and then recants by telling us that the story is not like that, but a story about his culture. There's a sense that in a world of cultures where everyone is given an opportunity to tell their respective stories, that representative from Aboriginal Australia chose to tell this one, not as a tale that would arouse mere curiosity or interest, but as a tale that would fit other worldy tales.

There's no arbitrary sense of invasion (as compared to other films that detail marginalized cultures --- like Mel Gibson's Apocalypto (2006) or even harmless tributes like Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922) or much more recently Zacharias Kunuk's Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)). Ten Canoes is a film that feels so natural in its setting, its methods, and its choices in storytelling that there's a sense of belonging, of a welcoming invitation to immerse oneself to the culture, and not being merely extraneous viewers.

Alexandra's Project (2003)

Alexandra's Project (Rolf de Heer, 2003)

Rolf de Heer's Alexandra's Project begins like a dream. The camera glides through the concrete roads of a seemingly ordinary Australian suburb. The morning sun giving off a cool and somewhat eerie illumination as the camera shows the stillness and the unnerving normality of the neighborhood. The camera stops. We see a townhouse, and the camera allows us to peek inside: a man is sleeping while his wife, pale-looking and with a hint of conflict in her face, observes her husband. Cut to the next scene: the woman is alone in the bathroom, and says a sweet sorry to her husband. We instantly know there's some kind of trouble between the couple. Then, she spits and takes back her apology in an instant change of mood. Then, we know that it's not merely trouble. It is deep, deep trouble.

Alexandra's Project is the story of Steve (Gary Sweet), the stereotypical perfect husband. Well over his forties, he takes care of himself physically, is an able provider to his two children, and is well-loved in his office where he is assured of a raise and a promotion. He is also celebrating his birthday, and is expecting a pleasant surprise from his family. His wife Alexandra (Helen Buday) has devised a plan. She plans to give her husband the most memorable birthday present ever. After a very breezy day in the office, Steve goes home expecting a surprise party. What he gets, however, is a cold beer, a comfortable chair, a television set, a remote control, and Alexandra's titular project, a videotape of Alexandra's birthday greetings, including a birthday striptease, followed by tirades about their marital concerns, which complicates into something violent, something completely unexpected.

It's a very interesting proposition that De Heer presents: a concept that can pass off as suburban Ringu without any ghosts coming out of the television set, instead the nightmare of nightmares of marital discord suddenly revealing itself from the television. It's a gripping thriller that relies mostly on the ingenuity of the script, written by de Heer, and the proficiency of it two main actors. Sweet inhabits the role of the husband with confident pomp, that will quickly deflate. In the beginning of the film, he is shown entirely naked scoffing at the fat neighbor who is watering his plants far too early. Sweet gives off an air of annoying arrogance that somewhat justifies the ensuing events. De Heer makes sure he doesn't grant the man too much personality, just mere glimpses of what he is capable of; there are slight hints of the man cheating, but these are never entirely materialized.

Buday on the other hand is a complete revelation. Her somewhat anemic predisposition in the early scenes of the film, her somewhat housewife uselessness, and the fact that the house is a literal prison with all the safety gadgets put upon it, makes her complete turnabout a real satisfying surprise. She suddenly becomes sexy, dangerous, psychotic, and erotic. Most of her acting is done through the confines of the television tube, but she communicates her frustrations and aggressiveness very well. Her monologues give off a level of insanity that may or may not be justified, but is indeed watchable.

Alexandra's Project is delightfully well-made but the letdown is not in de Heer's technical mastery but his creative decisions. It all starts well, as a suburban nightmare. Then it drowns in everyday conceit which gives off a realistic hint to all of the proceedings. The board meetings, the taxi cab rides, all of those routine activities of normal living betray the ensuing events since Alexandra's plan might not actually work in a setting based on reality, where cops do roam about, and there is the magic of the internet where anything and everything can be found, and even without that, there are telephones and other modes of communication that can easily stop the wife from finally completing her plan. If it were a Lynchian nightmare ala Blue Velvet, this film could probably be a near-masterpiece, but de Heer opts for realism, and tense thrills rather than surreal dreaminess.