Brutal, Bloody, Beautiful.

In 1800’s Australia, somewhere in the rugged skeleton colonies of New South Wales, police trooper Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) puts this proposition to Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce, greasier and grimier than he was in THE HARD WORD, 2002 – if that’s even possible): Kill your older brother to save your younger from the noose.

Poffy the Unwashed

THE PROPOSITION is filth and dust and blood, punishing Outback heat bleeding off the screen; a land so untamed it spawns lawmen as sociopathic as the lawbreakers they pursue.

Captain Stanley has the best intentions (“I will civilize this land”) but has been hardened by the vicissitudes of keeping order in this barren world far from Britain. (“Australia. What fresh hell is this?”) After capturing two of the three notorious Burns brothers, Charlie and Mikey (Richard Wilson), Stanley proposes to hang youngest brother Mikey come Christmas Day if Charlie has not yet killed his older brother, Arthur (foreboding Danny Huston), singularly responsible for putting the “notorious” in Burns Brothers. Stanley proposes a pardon for both brothers if Arthur is killed. Charlie reminds Stanley he is only a copper, not a judge and jury, to which Stanley replies, “Clearly, Mr. Burns, I am what I wish to be.”

What no one counts on is the ruthlessness that comes at Charlie and Stanley from all sides: the insubordinate prison guards who disapprove of Stanley’s plan and who can’t stop thinking about rubbing their wonderful filth over Captain Stanley’s delicate wife (Emily Watson); Stanley’s superior government official, sadistic Eden Fletcher (David Wenham, putting on the weaseliest voice he could possibly muster) who has Mikey flogged; bounty hunter Jellon Lamb (John Hurt, educated, articulate and crazy as the heat) who is also hunting Arthur; the aboriginals of this stolen land who pigstick Charlie in a shocking scene…

Then there is Arthur Burns himself, a poet savage, a lunatic genius, “a monster, an abomination,” whose credo of love and family are an insane irony when we learn of the family he recently raped and mass-murdered, the very reason for which Captain Stanley has set his own brother upon him.

Arthur seems to realize what a deviant he is when he carves a knife down a man’s chest, while asking brother Charlie, “Why can’t you ever – just – stop me?”

The strange paradox of this movie is Arthur’s rightness in the way he perpetrates his wrongness. When his young crazy gang member asks Arthur the definition of “misanthrope,” their Aboriginal gang member answers and the youngster turns on him, “I didn’t ask you, you black bastard!” Hilarity for its very misanthropy… Arthur replies, “A misanthrope is someone who hates every other bastard.” Youngster: “Is that us?” Arthur: “Good lord, no! We’re a family.” Dark hilarity piled on dark hilarity.

Words cannot describe this particular visual feast, baked in the furnace of the great southern desert land; when Stanley sits on his porch and gazes out at the expanse of dry flat earth haze, the heaviness of the air makes it hard to breathe.

Though everyone’s performance is superb, Ray Winstone floats miles above the cast for nuance; just the way he holds tears in his eyes in moments when moral ambiguity clouds all reason, is enough to put tears in yours.

And everyone gets to point a gun almost directly at the camera, arm ramrod straight, in hard closeup. We can see the director drooling over this angle.

Written by Nick Cave (who also composed the dirty violin soundtrack), directed by John Hillcoat like shade never existed, THE PROPOSITION is a hard bushranger tale (“bushranger” is the Aussie version of the wild west “outlaw”), probably the first to draw you into the old world so fully with its attention to 1800’s detail and ochre cinematography, the accepted social injustices toward the blacks (Aboriginals), and avoiding the base romanticism of Ned Kelly movies (Australia’s most famous bushranger). What makes this film so immortal is that the words “outlaw” and “bushranger” are never mentioned – because by film’s end, it is impossible to distinguish who is who.

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Epic Saddlebag Superhero.

Being a son of Australia, this movie was calling to my blood. I had to watch it, right? I had to know it, feel it, taste it. And report back on whether it hides behind the faux-Aussie Outback Steakhouse jive, or whether it truly captures the wild frontier Dreamtime spirit of Downunda; the vast ochre countryscapes, the earthy indomitability of the fledgling nation… and Hugh Jackman’s sky-tanned, whip-leathered, torpedo-ripped, v-shaped body.

Drover Poffy

All of the above… No fake Outback Steakhouse accents in sight.

You’ve gotta have some ballsac to name your movie AUSTRALIA. It better be as epic as the story that drove a continent from convict colony to commonwealth.

Well, it’s Baz Luhrmann, so it’s gonna be stylish; it’s Nicole Kidman, so it’s gonna be painfully pretty; it’s Hugh Jackman, so it’s gonna be oozing sexual bacon like a piston on powerdrive.

Set in 1939, on the threshold of World War II, directed by Luhrmann, AUSTRALIA is a fitting update to the lowbrow image that CROCODILE DUNDEE burned into a blinkered world in 1986.

Kidman is Lady Sarah Ashley, who travels to Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory, to hold onto her middle-of-nowhere property against the clutches of land baron King Carney (Bryan Brown). She finds herself in a massive cattle drive with a ragtag team of drovers, led by a man known as Drover (Jackman, doing some fine tragic acting over and above his bacon).

What can a man say about Hugh Jackman without going slightly bi-curious in the process? I’ll try. I counted at least seven Superhero Entrances, three Sexiest Man Alive pose-downs and lost count of the times I was caught looking at his gun-belt slung so low that I accidentally imagined his package brushing against my naked face. (Failed again with that “bi-curious” thing…)

We meet Wolverine in a barroom brawl – big surprise! – biceps thrumming and wisecracks humming, his native Aussie accent so broad and true-blue I was flat out like a lizard drinkin’ tryin’ ta catch the Strine. Snooty Lady Ashley’s outspoken British disdain for this rowdy bushman tells us they are soon going to be tonguing breathlessly in the moonlight or dancing in the rain or running tearfully towards each other with uplifting music swelling the soundtrack.

Again: all of the above.

But now comes the element that separates this sloppy love story from its many mindless hormonal Teen Model copies.

It’s not just the soaring cinematography (AUSTRALIA must be viewed on the widest of wide screens); it’s not just Nicole Kidman’s padded baseball breasts straining against harsh schoolmarm blouses (eternally 23 years old, how come she has no pores?); it’s not just exhibiting bravery in killing kangaroos (the equivalent of killing American bald eagles – like the eagle, the kangaroo is a national symbol, but to a whole native people, the kangaroo is merely food); that which separates AUSTRALIA from the conveyor belt of epic, sweeping, tiresome love stories is… the Dreamtime – the rich, mysterious Aboriginal culture…

…embedded in this movie like the trail dust under Drover’s taut-buttocked saddle. Personified by the regal David Gulpilil, veteran Australian Aboriginal legend, playing an old-world tribal loner named King George, in touch with The Land and destiny in ways we “civilized” muckies cannot fathom.

Dr. Strange got nuthin’ on the Dreamtime!

And 12-year-old Brandon Walters as Nullah. In his first feature role, this young Aboriginal with the golden-black hair dominates the screen with confidence, frailty, innocence and empathy. The film is his – he stands as tall as Kidman and Jackman. He narrates from his perspective as the bastard son of a “white fella” and an Aboriginal, a half-caste the bigots call “creamy.” Nullah attaches himself to Lady Ashley after his mother dies; together with Drover, they form an informal family unit. (And Drover is not just a shallow white fella – his best mate is a “black fella” (David Ngoombujarra) and his deceased wife was that mate’s sister. The racist townsfolk consider Drover a black fella – which makes for a great excuse to start barroom brawls.)

AUSTRALIA marries the three disparate elements of Australia – the pompous city (Kidman), the rugged country (Jackman) and the beating blood of the land (Walters) – in one inadvertent family thrown together by range war and world war. It is heartening that Luhrmann and his co-writers (Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood and Richard Flanagan) remembered that all these elements together shaped the Australia we know today.

Never has there been an Australian movie that gives such respect, acceptance and influence to Aborigines. Which makes this film an old-fashioned epic with new-fashioned values.

AUSTRALIA comes with two happy endings (not counting the scene where Hugh Jackman pours a bucket of water over his nude beefcake). Ending #1 finds Lady Ashley, Drover and Nullah settling on her hard-won property (after that dance in the rain), but instead of the credit roll which would seem fitting here, we get – WAR! And land baron King Carney (your average “twirling mustache” villain) is succeeded by his henchman, Fletcher (David Wenham), who is truly monstrous – the type who would gun down his own son for financial gain.

Stakes are ramped up as Fletcher almost destroys Lady Ashley, while sending his own illegitimate son, Nullah, to a boys’ home on Mission Island. Which the Japanese immediately bomb.

I promised myself I wouldn’t cum.

Whole third act is a tearjerker movie in itself, as everyone thinks everyone else is dead, leading to the inevitable “running tearfully towards each other with uplifting music” moment.

In a horrifying display of callousness, Fletcher tries to shoot Nullah, his own estranged son, until King George – a ubiquitous mystical presence throughout the movie – descends on him like a bird of prey. You will never again use the word “spearchucker” as derision.

Despite terribly inauthentic lighting, some iffy green-screen (worst offender is Nullah staring down stampeding CGI), and the mystical “I will sing you to me” moments involving Over the Rainbow, AUSTRALIA is a cry of elation for a southern desert land that was seemingly conquered by Hollywood with the DUNDEES, now reclaiming its mystery and majesty; a complex tale of three worlds in harmony, gleefully destroying Australian archetypes and shaping brave new ones.

Ending #2 is the bravura stroke, as Nullah goes a-Waltzing Matilda into the Australian bush with King George, on “walkabout” (Aboriginal transition to manhood). Luhrmann could have easily opted for a crass generic scene of two white lovers riding slomo into a red sun; rather, this movie is Nullah’s journey, Lady Ashley and Drover watching him fade into manhood, as a magic hour sunset burns into the sad horizon…

Think I’ll go start a barroom brawl at Outback Steakhouse.

END

Dances With Crocodiles.

From Barbecued Shrimps to New York Pimps and Boyfriend Wimps.

Growing up in Australia, I knew of Paul Hogan since the mid ’70s. A regular face on Australian TV with his reasonably funny PAUL HOGAN SHOW, he was the paragon of the ocker Everyman. (“Ocker” is an uncultivated Australian; one of low social caste, revealed through their broad accent and over-use of Aussie slang – a near analogue of America’s trailer park contingent.)

Crocodile Poffy

These days, Paul Hogan is a god.

I didn’t know Hogan personally, although in 1991, I performed a few rock gigs with his eldest son, guitarist Clay – an apple who fell far from the tree. Not talent-wise, but industry-wise.

In 2006, Hogan seems to have joined his son in that meadow, slowly rotting far from the industry’s fickle tree. But in a fluke of good timing back in 1986, Hogan’s weathered, masculine bushman character from the Australian outback happened to be the perfect foil to New York’s 80s hairstyles, yuppie consumerism and disco sensibilities.

From a story by Hogan, John Cornell and Ken Shadie, and helmed by mustered Australian television director, Peter Faiman, CROCODILE DUNDEE not only put Hogan on the world stage – it put Australia there too. DUNDEE captured the earthy, textured Australia that lent a “heritage” aspect to that juvenile backwater, and was largely responsible for the misperception of the “hardened Aussie” in subsequent Fosters beer ads. Though merely a modern, laconic retelling of the noble savage tale, the movie is refreshing enough in its simplicity and sincerity to garner itself a little shelf life in the Tarzan pantheon.

American audiences were ready to embrace the blond, blue-eyed, rugged, crocodile hunter after Hogan kicked Australian tourism up ten notches with his spurious offer to “put another shrimp on the Barbie.”

Even though there was no such thing…

Y’see, Australians call shrimp “prawns.” And no one – but NO ONE – ever included prawns in their barbecue menus. Take my word. I’m Australian. At the million or so barbecues I attended whilst growing up Downunda, barbecuists were known to put various foodstuffs on the “barbie” – sausages, t-bones, chicken, hamburgers, franks, buns, onions, fish, potatoes, tomatoes, chops – but no shrimp. It was a fantasy created by American marketers. But, much like THE GODFATHER influenced the vernacular and lifestyles of real mobsters, so too has that “shrimp” fiction become reality, in the States and Australia alike. To the point where I almost feel like *I’m* lying about the historical non-existence of this cuisine…

Onward.

“Are you trying to hypnotize me into taking off the rest of my clothes?”

CROCODILE DUNDEE finds Hogan as the somewhat mythical eponymous character, Michael J. “Crocodile” Dundee, infamous for his wild croc encounters. Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski), an American newspaper reporter on assignment in Australia, chases him down in a Northern Territory backwater, Walkabout Creek, spending three sensually-charged days in the bush with him (ostensibly to recount his tall tales for her column), then packs him off to New York with her, on the pretense of wrapping the tale Stateside, but more truthfully drawn to the masculinity which her effete American fiancé (Mark Blum) cannot provide.

Throughout the movie, Dundee is a surprising blend of legitimacy (hypnotizing animals, a crack shot) and fakery (pretending to shave with his knife or tell the time by the sun’s position); a fascinating mix of innocence (“What’s today, Wal?”), philosophy (“Aborigines don’t own the land – they belong to it”), and machismo (with a heroic crocodile kill that saves Sue’s life and seals their fate as imminent Beast With Two Backs).

“I’m glad I brought my canteen-filling clothes…”

The New York segment is, ultimately, where the fish-out-of-water absurdities are just waiting to happen. Nothing new here, as the film takes on a decidedly 80’s plastic flavor, with Dundee encountering bidets, jealous boyfriends and jive talk, drag queens, muggers and pimps. Oh my.

It’s always nostalgic for me to hear the song Live It Up during the suburban party scene. Though performed by average Australian band Mental As Anything, due to never hearing it outside Australian shores, it has become somewhat of a poignant memory. The other party song, Different World, was performed by another obscure Australian band – INXS.

During the Australian segment, Peter Best‘s soundtrack evokes Aboriginal otherworldliness by employing simple flute and guitar lines, Aboriginal clicking sticks and didgeridoo pulses. His main theme is brilliantly based on a one-note jogging pulse, tribal and sensual, like a heartbeat of the living earth.

The cheesy romantic climax sees Woman Running Through Streets and Public Avowal Of Love clichés. Tempering this silliness is Best’s one-note pulse, at first subliminal, sustaining and growing over five minutes, throbbing at our temples in driving urgency, and at the movie’s final shot is like a throat-gurgling orgasm of sound, holding up the finale with its power and slicing the cliché neatly in half.

Now that’s a knife!

END