| RATING: | 80% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Starts out as a rip-off of Once Upon a Time in the West and quickly becomes The Cowboys. This Ozzie Western (Eastern?) is by turns funny and tear-jerking in equal measure.
Essentially a grand and melodramatically-colorful celebration of the eponymous country (& continent) which also tries to come-to-terms with its endemic White supremacism. It focuses on the fact that Whites have little culture other than that appropriated from others - religion, language, science, etc. Australian aborigines here Dream (create their own mythology) and thus have a Story (their own culture) to pass on to their children. This gives them a strong sense of belonging via a shared and effectively-transmitted culture. Whites, on the other hand, can only feel a sense of Themselves through self-definitions couched in terms of what They are not: Black, savage, emotionally-expressive, etc; and thereby making what They are not a negative. A cultureless culture, indeed.
The characterization is thin albeit archetypal. And for once, CGI is used to heighten the emotional experience rather than to impress an audience with formalistic spectacle, grandeur and sheer size. Despite the fact that the movie's structure is a little too loose for its own good - along with the plotting - this is a good, old-fashioned treat with its heart firmly in the right place.
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