Australia the movie – glittering event – what was the movie like though?

In a glittering afternoon and evening this week, Tourism Australia hosted the good and the great of Australia’s tourism industry and media to an afternoon and evening of celebration of the launch of Australia the movie.

The question on everybody’s lips after the premiere The Mole attended [one of many taking place over a couple of weeks] was, well what was it really like?

Now firstly, let me say that every movie and whether you like it or not is a very subjective and personal matter and the Mole is no different in that regard – hey I love Mama Mia, while others hate it – I also love the British crime TV programmes, while others hate them.

So what about Australia – the movie?

Well there is no doubt that the massive scale of the landscape of Australia is very well portrayed.

Whether that will drive travel in and to Australia we will have to wait to see. 

One thing is for certain, Tourism Australia has bet the farm on this movie, so they have a lot riding on its success and I hope it does very well for them……….and the Australian tourism industry.

Now, back to the movie – remember this is the Mole’s view – I am trying to be objective though!

The bottom line is that I don’t view it as a great classic masterpiece that I would want to see again and again.   

It is way, way too long – actually hugely too long – I thought that after she cattle mustering scenes it was all over, then realised we had not seen the Darwin scenes and it was only half way through! 

It is very cheesy – very cheesy indeed and is very slow to get going! 

It is also clearly the work of someone who I think is more comfortable on stage rather than in the moives with lots of stage type pregnant pauses for dramatic effect, heightening the cheesiness with close up camera shots of faces as they pause for even greater dramatic effect.

One kissing scene [actually not this one – but the first quivering kiss – come on guys he was a drover in the outback, not a banker from Double Bay!] was painfully long and slow getting going and frankly became a tad embarrassing. 

In reality Luhrmann could have condensed the whole story into half the time and it could even have been two movies Australia One – the cattle station stuff and Australia Two – the Darwin stuff!  

Now having said all that, Australia the movie is clearly an epic of mammoth proportions and one that will without question assist in positioning Australia on the world map, but whether that will covert into travel, we will have to wait and see.

So who do I think will love it and hate it?

Aussies especially guys will hate it – the girls will love it, not least of all because of the tear jerking, lip quivering Mills and Boone-esque scenes, but Hugh Jackman’s rippling muscles….and of course the excellent Brandon Walters…..plenty of tears for him!

I think Brits will hate it as it is way to cheesy, slow and clicheed

I think Americans will love it as they love cheesy.

I think Asian nations in general will love it as they like epics and massive statements of culture and destinations, but some of its success in varying countries will depend on whether it will be dubbed or sub-titled

I thought Kidman’s acting was very forced and rather unnatural, while Jackman’s was pretty good and it is not his fault that Luhrmann made him do pregnant pause close ups for the camera! 

The scenes of Australia were awesome, but whether tourists will be able to visit them and actually recognise them from the movie is another matter – for example is there a Faraway Downs  If not, we had better build one!

The special effects, especially the bombing of Darwin ones were pretty lacklustre and with superimposed visuals, which quite simply did not work â€“ hard to compare these with the excellent visual effects in the movie Pearl Harbour.

But rather than listen to me rambling on I thought I would list some of what professional reviewers have had to say so here we go: –

The Herald Sun:

He set himself an enormous challenge, but Baz Luhrmann has pulled off an incredible film in Australia.

Shoehorning two complete films into one package, Australia sees Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, a privileged aristocrat drawn to the outback to sell her late husband’s failing cattle station.

But she’s soon drawn to the landscape, a little Aboriginal boy called Nullah, played startlingly by newcomer Brandon Walters, and a taciturn drover (Hugh Jackman) who reluctantly helps her save her property.

The film begins with surprising slapstick and trademark Luhrmann over-the-top humour – a scene featuring Jackman giving himself a bath with a bucket is pure beefcake and proud of it – but settles into a compelling and moving tale which traverses war, race relations, class and the Stolen

It’s a movie with a message, but Luhrmann provides the audience with no shortage of thrills, from a cliff hanger cattle stampede to the bombing of Darwin.

Kidman and Jackman are perfect together, Jackman’s broad speaking drover a perfect foil to Kidman’s snooty English rose.

Australia is full of familiar faces, from David Gulpilil to David Wenham, Bryan Brown to Ben Mendelsohn, but not so familiar places, to many Australians anyway.

Australia features some of the most beautiful photography ever seen in an Australian film, from the Bungle Bungles in the Kimberley to the Northern Territory in the midst of the wet season.

A love letter to the Australian landscape and our history, Australia has international blockbuster written all over it.

The Herald Sun said:

The Australian

Baz Luhrmann’s Australia is good, but not a masterpiece

Baz Luhrmann’s eagerly awaited Australia is certainly the epic that we all expected.

It’s very ambitious, it has enormous sweep and scope as it tells a story that takes place in the Northern Territory between 1939 and 1941.

Of course, as most people know, the leading character played by Nicole Kidman is an Englishwoman who comes to a small property that her husband owns in the Territory to discover that her husband in fact has been killed. She forms an alliance with The Drover for the district, played by Hugh Jackman, in combating the local cattle baron, who’s played by Bryan Brown.

The film has sections, really – the first, the arrival of Lady Sarah Ashley to Australia and her meeting with the Hugh Jackman character and with the half-Aboriginal boy who plays an important part in the story, leading the cattle drive. With great difficulty they drive cattle to Darwin to get there ahead of the big cattle baron.

The second half of the story, after the inevitable love affair, involves the Japanese attack on Darwin and all its ramifications.

Like his earlier films Strictly Ballroom, Romeo+Juliet and Moulin Rouge, Australia shows Baz Luhrmann as a very theatrical director. He has a great eye for compositions and the film is beautifully shot by Mandy Walker, but there’s theatricality about the film which is a bit off-putting at the beginning. The early scenes, even the first 20 minutes or so of the film, are handled in a slightly artificial, arch manner which doesn’t sit well with the outback locations and the natural settings of the story.

It’s all very well to be artificial when you’re dealing with a theatrical concept like Moulin Rouge or even Strictly Ballroom, but it doesn’t really work so well when you’re doing the same sort of thing here, so there’s something that’s just a little bit off key about these scenes. Then once the cattle drive gets under way either you get used to it or that aspect of it is played down because the remainder of the film is much stronger in a rather conventional way.

I have to say, there’s a lot of clichés in the script, a lot of familiar elements from other films of the past – The Wizard of Oz and the song Over the Rainbow are heavily referenced – and it’s as though the film is aimed at not so much an Australian audience but an international audience, and especially an American audience.

I think probably it has the potential to be quite successful in America because it is, I think for Australians, a rather simplistic view of this whole period. It’s the sort of film where if you make a point about half-caste Aboriginals in the first 10 minutes you have to restate exactly the same point another couple of hours further on.

The film is not without flaws, it’s not the masterpiece that we were hoping for, but I think you could say that it’s a very good film in many ways. While it will be very popular with many people I think there’s a slight air of disappointment after it all. But I will say that the acting is of a very high level, especially given that some of the actors have been encouraged to perform in this rather stylised, theatrical way. Nicole Kidman does a very good job as she develops from this very stiff, awkward, naive Englishwoman to become a really warm character at the end of the film.

Hugh Jackman has tremendous charisma and charm, and the supporting cast is particularly good; Jack Thompson as the alcoholic accountant for the property gives a lovely performance, Bryan Brown is terrific as the cattle baron, although his demise is extremely perfunctory, and David Wenham is another terrific villain, very charming and intense. In minor roles there are all sorts of interesting people including Ben Mendelssohn, Bill Hunter and Arthur Dignam. And then there’s little 12-year-old Brandon Walters, who plays the Aboriginal boy, who’s really very good indeed.

Despite its flaws – and it certainly has flaws – I think Australia is an impressive and important film, and if I were to give it a star rating I would give it three and a half out of five.

Courier Mail

No classic but Australia still a beauty, mate

Australia Day has come early with the first screenings of Baz Luhrmann’s much anticipated blockbuster, Australia, and it should prove a dinkum hit.

While its unlikely to surpass Australian classics such as Gallipoli, Muriel’s Wedding or Newsfront on all-time favourite local lists, it is a home-grown movie that deserves to be seen (not something that can be said for many recent Australian productions).

The 165-minute $160 million epic made in the grand manner of classics such as Gone With the Wind (222 min), Ben-Hur (212 min), and Titanic (197 min) reveals a strong emotional pull that should connect, particularly with female moviegoers.

The first hour is needed to set up the story set in the Northern Territory before the outbreak of World War ll play like a Crocodile Dundee lll, but the saga effectively draws you in when a cattle drive across the Top End from the east Kimberley to Darwin gets started.

Luhrmann has directed such favourites as Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge after presenting Strictly Ballroom on stage during Brisbane’s World Expo 20 years ago.

Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, who has made some eccentric career choices but should win fans over here, and Hugh Jackman, playing as broad an Aussie as Chips Rafferty, provide genuine chemistry in their scenes together.

They’re surrounded by a roll call of familiar faces, such as David Wenham as the movie’s most despicable player, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn, but the most talked about performer will be Broome’s Brandon Walters as a part-Aboriginal child, Nullah.

He and David Gulpilil as Nullah’s grandfather, King George, are central to the stolen generation element of the saga that Luhrmann features on the amazing landscapes of the east Kimberley.

Breath-taking is the only way to describe a cattle stampede scene, and it proves more convincing than the Darwin air raid sequence that leaves the tropical city in flames (in a scene clearly designed to match the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind).

The most difficult thing for modern audiences will be accepting 1940s attitudes to women, indigenous, and pre-war Oz culture displayed here.

While its difficult to imagine Oscar nominations for Kidman or Jackman, as competent as their performances are, Australia is likely to feature in craft areas.

Outstanding is the only way to describe Mandy Walker’s flawless cinematography, production design and costumes (the work of Mrs Luhrmann, Oscar-winner Catherine Martin), editing, visual effects and sound.

The film is released in cinemas on Thursday, November 27.

The Adelaide Advertiser

Australia delivers the goods

The most anticipated and expensive Australian movie of all time delivers the goods in sensational epic proportions.

Director, co-producer and co-writer Baz Luhrmann moves his story through one of the most dramatic periods of Australian history, the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and the 1942 aerial bombing attack on Darwin which left the city devastated and hundreds dead.

With a cast headed by two international Australian stars, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, Luhrmann sweeps the two-part story through exciting, dramatic, romantic and humorous events with his trademark dynamo pacing and marvellous visual flair.

He’s packed his cast with a football team of Australian stars and actors – Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, Ben Mendelsohn, Barry Otto, Tony Barry, Kerry Walker, Ray Barrett, Sandy Gore, Bill Hunter et al.

Luhrmann weaves many styles and genres through his story stirring reminders of John Ford westerns, works of Clint Eastwood, Howard Hawks, William Wyler and strongly, the classic movie The Wizard of Oz.

Emotions, driven by power, love and violence surge through the excitement and challenges of a most diverse and colourful collection of Aussie characters many roughly honed from the harsh environment and the struggle for survival.

The thrust of the narrative is driven by the clash of intrusive white culture on the traditional indigenous owners of the land with a strong undercurrent of Aboriginal spirituality.

Its core is 13-year-old Nullah in a magnificent, natural and endearing debut performance by Brandon Walters, who carries the movie on his small shoulders while all around him high drama evolves.

Nullah is dubbed a “creamy” by his father, white cattle boss Fletcher (David Wenham in very broad mode), his Aboriginal mother is the daughter of tribal leader King George (David Gulpilil). Nullah becomes a huge influence on Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman), an English aristocrat, who arrives in Australia to sell her sprawling cattle station Faraway Downs.

She finds her husband has been murdered, allegedly by King George and comes face to face with The Drover (Jackman) in a hilarious and sudden discovery of another wildly different world. They connect and set up the first half of the movie.

Cattle King Carney (Brown) is about to tie up an Australian Army contract to supply beef but Lady Sarah and Drover have other ideas and with an improbable team, including her boozy accountant (rollicking Thompson) begin a seemingly impossible and long trek with 1500 cattle heading for Darwin.

The second half involves the developing love of Sarah and Drover, who has strong links to the indigenous and the outback. Then comes the stunning calamity of the Japanese attack. The Stolen Generation theme is continued strongly involving the church mission, Nullah and his uncle (David Ngoombujarra).

Jackman, in his finest role is outstanding, stamping the screen with international stardom authority.

Kidman moves smoothly from her uncomfortable elegance to the warmer and evolving “Mrs Boss”, whose compassion and understanding of this strange, new world is quickly formed by the attack and the ruthlessness of business.

Luhrmann has given himself a huge challenge with an overload of themes, styles, events and characters. He holds it together and delivers a huge entertainment with moments of greatness.

It’s corny, I know, it’s also a film that has the looks as big as it’s title.

AUSTRALIA – FOUR STARS

The UK Times

Australia, the movie

It has every Australian cliché you could hope for, from kangaroos and Nicole Kidman to aborigines going walkabout and, yep, Waltzing Matilda. There is even, within moments of the opening scenes, Rolf Harris’s wobble board.

But Baz Luhrmann’s long-awaited, and over-budget epic Australia manages, against the odds, to avoid turning into one big sunburnt stereotype about Godzone country. Instead, in what turns out to be a multi-layered story it describes an Australia of the 1940s that is at once compellingly, beautiful and breathtakingly cruel.

Described as a cross between Gone with the Wind and Out of Africa it bears, in fact, little resemblance to either movie – apart from a similarly spectacular landscape as Out of Africa and a plot line that loosely resembles that of Gone with the Wind.

In this case, Lady Sarah Ashley, a passionless English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman), inherits a vast cattle station in the Northern Territories only to find that the station is the target of a dastardly takeover plot.

Much against her will, she is forced to enlist the help of a local stockman known only as Drover (Hugh Jackman), to save the station by driving her huge herd of cattle hundreds of miles across the Kuraman desert to Darwin. Which is then bombed by the Japanese.

In the worst Mills and Boon tradition, Lady Sarah – whose emotions are as frozen as Kidman’s forehead – and the rough neck Drover loathe each other on sight but, as they endure the harsh and rather dusty travails of the cattle drive they quite quickly fall in love. She even teaches him to dance. Under a boab tree.

But if it sounds shallow and predictable, Australia is, in fact, anything but.

The cliches are saved by little jokes and asides, as if Luhrmann is saying ‘Yes, I know, but what can you do?’ In an early scene, as the newly-arrived Sarah drives toward her station, Faraway Downs, with Drover, a herd of kangaroo lopes alongside their vehicle.

As Sarah “oohs” and “aahs” with melodramatic wonder, a shot rings out and one of the kangaroos falls, killed by an Aboriginal stockman riding, literally, shot gun on the roof of the car. The horrified aristocrat spends the rest of the trip staring at the hind leg of the kangaroo hanging disconsolately over the windscreen, and the trails of blood that trek through the dust on the glass.

Later that evening she pops her head out of her tent door to behold the kangaroo being roasted for dinner plus (more importantly) the sight of a half naked Drover soaping himself down; a scene that will only do for Jackman what James Bond’s swimming briefs did for Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, and will ensure Jackman as Craig’s only viable cinematic rival as the heart throb du jour.

But what gives the film its heart is something else entirely. This is also the story of Nullah (Brandon Walters), a mixed race Aboriginal boy left orphaned by the inhumanity of Australian law. The 1940s was the time of the Stolen Generation, when mixed race children were banned from living either with their Aboriginal families or within the white community, but were taken from their homes to be brought up in church missions.

Nullah’s increasingly frantic attempts to escape from the ‘coppers’ and his symbiotic relationship with his grandfather, the mystical King George, played with awesome power by the renowned Aboriginal dancer and musician David Gulpilil, is treated with a stark honesty and is what actually makes this film truly Australian in both its best and its worst sense.

Brandon, 13, was discovered by Lurhmann in his local swimming pool in the West Australian town of Broome and he plays Nullah with a combination of mischief and tragedy that may turn him into the real star of the film, despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that he has never acted before.

Australia is reported to have gone $US30million over its $US100 million budget and right to the last minute there was speculation that it would not be finished in time for its Australian premiere.

Australian audiences – who are already in love with the film – are guaranteed to flock to the box office but Luhrmann needs the American market if he is to break even. If all else fails there is always Jackman, stripped to the waist, under the shower. That if nothing else should pull them in.

The Canberra Times

Australia review: Good, but no classic, and way, way too long

In what has to be the most hyped and self-consciously local film since 1984’s The Man From Snowy River, the anxiously anticipated Australia is not a bad film. But it’s far from a great one, and certainly not one destined to be a classic.

That’s not to say it won’t be popular, possibly wildly so. The film has broad appeal, particularly to the chick-flick market, with its sweeping, overlong melodramatic saga about cattle drives, the stolen generations, the bombing of Darwin and Hugh Jackman’s abs. The story involves a prissy English woman (Nicole Kidman) who, with the help of a stockman known enigmatically as “The Drover” (Jackman), tries saving her troubled cattle station from a greedy cattleman (Bryan Brown) and his evil relative (David Wenham).

Blended into the tale is the touching story of a little boy of mixed blood, who serves as a symbol for the stolen generations and racism.

The film is fine, and never boring but, boy, is it overlong. At a mammoth 165 minutes it feels too much like a work-in-progress. There is a lot of narrative flab and longueurs in the first two hours and the film often has the pace of a steamroller with engine trouble.

Luhrmann also seems so eager to trowel on the Aussie cliches — obviously to appeal to the tourist markets! — that Australia is often simply irritating. The word “crikey” is spouted so often the film often sounds like a tribute to Steve Irwin.

Review by Louise Keller: Urban Cine File

Epic in the true sense, Baz Luhrmann’s Australia exhilarates by its grand themes and physical grandeur, while emotionally it’s the soulful look in those huge chocolate eyes of a little aboriginal boy that churns our sense of truth. Twelve year old Brandon Walters as Nullah, is indeed a rare find and it is his voice that tells Luhrmann’s story that encompasses topics as vast as spirituality, greed, discrimination, love and war.

Australia is Luhrmann’s ambitious vision and the filmmaker has taken heed of his own mantra that a life lived in fear is a life half lived. He’s gone for broke and the result, while true to his vision, will divide opinions. The film looks magnificent but is far too long. The star power is dazzling but I didn’t believe the central characters or their relationship.

Nonetheless, it’s an engrossing experience and one whose indelible images of a strikingly beautiful land linger.

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman may be heralded as the film’s stars, but the real star of Australia is the landscape. There is nothing like the majesty of a herd of wild brumbies galloping across the dusty plains. Or stampeding cattle on the barren red desert, pounding hoofs melding with the frenetic percussion of David Hirshfelder’s imposing score. The dazzling rock formations, the arid earth, the contrasting waterways and the glorious sunsets, all shot to perfection by Mandy Walker.

Catherine Martin’s attention to detail when it comes to costumes and production design is legendary. We are engrossed by the power of the land and the mystical qualities it exudes.

Walter’s Nullah is the little half caste boy, who belongs to no one and whose future lies in the balance as issues of the Stolen Generations impinge.

Heartthrob Jackman is earthy and sexy as the Drover (‘That’s how it is; it doesn’t mean it’s how it should be’) and Kidman, with clipped British accent is suitably haughty as the snooty aristocrat whose reserve is punctured. But there’s little chemistry between them – their spontaneous dance in the outback and that kiss in the pouring rain is purely cosmetic. Bryan Brown is totally believable as the scheming King Carney but doesn’t have enough screen time, David Wenham is terrific as the sadistic Neil Fletcher and Jack Thompson is in top form as the booze-loving accountant. The contribution from the aboriginal cast, namely David Gulpilil and David Ngoombujarra is outstanding, plus many other Australian actors make a fine contribution, including, Essie Davis, John Jarratt, Ben Mendelsohn and the always excellent Barry Otto.

The detail which Luhrmann has injected into this project is incredible and probably impossible to fully appreciate on first viewing. Even the inclusion of Rolf Harris’s famous wobble board plays its part as does the way the musical themes from The Wizard of Oz and Waltzing Matilda weave their way into the fabric of the tale.

As the credits roll, we take with us the spectacular imagery of a unique, vast land, as well as the haunting face of an innocent little boy whose culture is becoming invisible.

Review by Andrew L. Urban: Urban Cine File

It’s not the size that matters most in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, it’s the many details, the intimate, personal moments, the connection with and respect for the Aboriginal culture in the context of human interaction, and the evil that greed makes men callously do. But that’s not to dismiss the gloriously dramatic landscape that Mandy Walker captures with great finesse, nor the sweep of the story over two important years, up to the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese.

And as we would expect from Baz, he makes maximum use of music; and I’m not just referring to David Hirschfelder’s marvellous score. What a leap of cinematic faith it is to weave into this rich story the best known song from The Wizard of Oz, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, making it an iconic and symbolic glue for the cultures and the dreams of the characters. This is for me the film’s most sophisticated and complex element, a piece of creative brio. A whole essay could be written on this – and probably will be.

Also as you would expect from a cast made up of the most experienced and well known Australian actors, the performances are excellent – especially once the film’s dramatic engine is switched on. Like David Wenham doing venom as Neil Fletcher . . . But the performances of the lesser known actors, like Lillian Crombie, David Ngoombujurra as one of The Drover’s team, and especially young Brandon Walters as Nullah, the storyteller through whose eyes we see it and by whose narration we hear it, are wonderful revelations.

There are a couple of quibbles; one to do with the detail of the ending (not the ending itself), another to do with poor continuity in the same scene; and perhaps some of the performances at the beginning of the film are a little brittle and see-through. The other quibble is with the scene of a dozen Big Red kangaroos bouncing alongside a truck in the desert, as if taken from (or intended for) a Tourism Australia commercial.

But these things don’t stop us engaging with the film, and some of the big moments, like the cattle stampede towards a precipice, or the bombing of Darwin and subsequent rescues, deliver their payload of tension and carry us to the next chapter.

The romance between The Drover (Hugh Jackman – solid in every sense) and Sarah (Nicole Kidman – nicely judged character arc) is carefully calibrated and well judged – and executed, albeit the one bedroom scene, while tasteful and stylish, is oblique and short. It’s a family film …

Perhaps above all, credit to the storytelling, so frequently and sincerely celebrated throughout the screenplay in the context of its importance to all human beings. This film was always going to sink or swim on its ability to deliver a story that lives up to the extraordinary expectation (unfairly) placed on Baz and Catherine and the entire team.

Too long and too many cliches: critics pan Australia, the movie

Ailing tourism industry hopes for boost from ‘visually handsome’ epic

The UK Guardian

It is a compilation of every Australian cliche you could imagine – dusty outback scenes, exaggerated accents, blackfellas, boomerangs, even Rolf Harris and his idiosyncratic wobble board. Baz Luhrmann’s anxiously-awaited romantic epic Australia, the most expensive film in the country’s history, had its world premiere last night – and many critics said it failed to live up to expectations.

With a budget of £86m ($US130m) and an A-list cast including Oscar winner Nicole Kidman, Luhrmann’s new movie is the most ambitious and hyped film made in Australia. Upon it rest hopes of reviving a flagging tourist industry.

It tells the story of an aristocratic Brit, played by Kidman, who inherits an outback sheep station and has to save it by steering a herd of cattle across the country with the help of a man known only as The Drover, played by Hugh Jackman. Against the backdrop of the second world war, the pair fall in love and along the way meet an Aboriginal boy who provides a culturally enriching story of the Stolen Generation.

It is hoped that the movie will revive the country’s near-dormant film industry as well as saving the ailing tourist market. But the country’s leading film reviewers said it was too long, too cliched, and did not live up to the great expectations.

“Luhrmann seems so eager to trowel on the Aussie cliches, obviously to appeal to the tourist markets, that Australia is often simply irritating,” said Jim Schembri of The Melbourne Age. Veteran ABC critic David Stratton said: “It’s not the masterpiece we had hoped for.”

Luhrmann, who only finished editing the film 48 hours prior to its screening after he was forced by the studio to give it a “happy ending”, admitted yesterday he felt under pressure. “[Bad reviews] are not the most comfortable thing but we have given it our all. We’ve done our best and now it’s out in the world,” said Luhrmann, who went £20m over budget. Likening it to Gone With the Wind or Out of Africa, Luhrmann, the creative genius behind Moulin Rouge, said he hoped people were still watching it in 50 years’ time.

Twentieth Century Fox studio executives hope so too, and have launched an ambitious marketing strategy aimed at toppling Titanic as the highest grossing film ever, making $1.8bn. They also want it to take home a swag of Oscars.

The centre of Sydney came to a standstill for last night’s premiere. Stars Kidman and Jackman tripped down the 135-metre red carpet. Kidman reluctantly left four-month-old baby Sunday Rose in Tennessee with a nanny for 24 hours to attend the premiere with husband Keith Urban. She thanked Luhrmann – her “creative soulmate” – for giving her the rare opportunity to play a female lead in a homegrown movie, saying it was “a once in a lifetime film”.

“Baz gets offered everything – and he chose to make a film here using Australian cast and crew and giving it his all,” said Kidman, who was to see the film for the first time with 3,000 others last night. “This is a celebration for me and hopefully for this country. It’s not meant to be the second coming. It’s meant to be, let’s have some fun and enjoy it.”