Australia
Dir: Baz Luhrmann
2008
****
Baz Luhrmann has written a love letter to his native Australia and what better way to do it then to direct an epic! It's not quite your typical epic though, it's very camp, a little OTT and a bit tongue in cheek. At first the editing is fast and furious and I wondered if I could manage the whole 3 hours but soon it found its pace. Judging by interviews I've seen, the film very much took on its own form and almost became its own entity, a great excuse for a director to avoid criticism when things go wrong but somehow, I can almost understand that statement. As a film, it's inconsistent and a little messy but not once throughout the whole 3 hours was I ever bored, nor did the time pass slowly, quite the opposite in fact. I genuinely really liked it, I didn't expect to though, what with all the bad press it received. It kind of reminded me of 1941 or Popeye, two very big budget elaborate films that absolutely bombed at the box office and were labelled rubbish a little unfairly. Obviously Australia is a very different film but putting aside the mishaps, there are truly wonderful moments in this film that shouldn't go unnoticed. Overall, I thought that Australia ticked the most important box of all, it was fun!