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- Category:
- Soap Box
- Author:
- Phil Scott
- Posted:
- Wednesday, 26 November 2008
I have yet to see the Baz Luhrmann flick Australia, starring our own Hugh (Boy From Oz) and our own Nicole (The Thin Blue Line). That pleasure is reserved for a girls’ night out next week, because minor columnists from the gay press weren’t invited to the red carpet George St premiere.
No wukkins, as we say in Australia. I feel like I’ve seen it already, thanks to the trailers and publicity.
There have been oodles of puff pieces covering the movie. Even Miranda Devine wrote about it. She said it was about time a picture came along to show our great country as it truly is, because all other recent Oz films were rubbish.
Miranda was pissed off, because local filmmakers didn’t see it her way. Stalin felt the same, but he did something about it.
La Devine may have a point. We’re all a bit over drug fiends, criminals, maniacs and frustrated teenagers. (Except in Newcastle.) But at least we can relate to those characters. They are part of our social fabric, whereas most of us have never laid thighs on a horse or an anorexic aristocrat.
Anyway, Australia will set a new benchmark, taking the mantle from… which movie? Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is thought by many to be the iconic Aussie film. If you want to go more mainstream, there’s Gallipoli.
What do these epics have that Australia doesn’t (as far as I know)? That’s correct: homoerotic content. Where are the poofs, or even (as in Gallipoli) terribly terribly good mates? Queers are so much a part of the Australian landscape, we’re like little same-sex-attracted marsupials.
I reckon Australia would have struck a chord if, instead of Nic, the depressed, drug addicted aristocrat Sebastian from Brideshead Revisited had wandered into the outback to start a new life, and fallen head over high heels for Hugh the drover. Then we might have had a musical with songs like If I Loved Hugh, If Hugh Were the Only Girl in the World and Over the Rainbow. Actually, I believe Over the Rainbow does make an appearance, so there is at least one glimmer of Luhrmann camp.
It’s not unheard of to take older genres and subvert them with gay themes. Look at Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven, the 2002 movie that copied Hollywood’s 1950s melodramas. Julianne Moore emoted exquisitely in a perfect ’50s suburban house, with a ’50s suburban husband in his ’50s suburban closet. OK, it was short on action. I guess closeted gays didn’t get much action in those days.
I read that the ending of Australia was shot three times. There’s an ending where Hugh dies, “it’s all over, dead drover”, another where he lives to drove again, and a third one different from both the others. As a friend of mine said, “Is that the one where Hugh comes out?” I guess they’ll all be on the anniversary DVD.
However it ends, let’s hope Australia’s an even bigger hit than The Fag from Snowy River.
Tags: Australia, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Priscilla, star spangled banter
November 27th, 2008 @ 7:51 am
Just so I’m not accused of Newcastle-bashing: the words ‘Newcastle’ and ‘Australia’ in the text above refer to the movies of that name, not the places themselves. All movie titles were in italics in my submitted copy. Now read on…
November 27th, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
Phil I have to correct you there doll.
In one of the Man in Black’s (Phillip Adams) books he manages to out Archy and Frank in Gallipoli. He relates a conversation with Peter Weir who quite simply states that half way through the film he and David Williamson (the writer of the screenplay) realised that there were making a film about two gay men.
December 3rd, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
I almost forced myself to see it yesterday at the ‘Cheap Tuesday’ (and final) session at my local flicks. In the end I just couldn’t face it.
Apart from not being fond of Kidman and Jackman, the idea of another Aussie film about the Outback/bush where only a tiny minority of Australians live just didn’t do it for me.
PS Last week’s ‘Cheap Tuesday’ was ‘Brideshead Revisited’ and that was a wonderful two hours spent. Never having read the book nor seen the mini-series added to the enjoyment.
April 24th, 2009 @ 10:58 pm
Sounds cool!!!!