Australia

If I am completely honest with you having seen this on three occasions I am still unsure what this beautifully photographed film is about. The backdrops are colourful and remain as mesmerising and captivating as Jeremy Irons is with Fanny Ardant. The plot centres in part around an English dynasty which has some of its fortune based in the Australian wool industry during the 1920/30's. The textile business has less to do with the plot than the intriguing interaction between the two leading actors. Flashbacks occur, intermingled with their present day roles as parents, business people and travellers... and all the while leaving the viewer to decide where this story is going. In other words, you have to work quite hard to glean an appreciation of the deep intrigue involved.

The first time I saw this film, although having enjoyed, and felt deeply moved I had little or no idea even what this was about and felt totally baffled. That's a challenge! In order to crack it... you are compelled to watch this more than once. How often does a film withstand multiple viewing and remain as much a pleasure to watch each time as it was the first? In my experience, rarely. I recommend this to anyone, regardless of gender, age or background. There are many levels to 'Australia' not least the beautiful cinematography, and this is unbelievably distracting.

The acting is effortless, perfectly directed and the script is admittedly sparse but extremely well-timed and thought out. If you watch this with someone you are bound to end up discussing what exactly you've just seen. So buy it! I guarantee you'll watch this more than once, and you'll probably feel you'd like to have lived as they did... A genuinely timeless film.

I have, in this film! Jeremy Irons waffles between speaking English (in the Australian scenes) and French (in the scenes in Belgium)! Potential viewers should realize that the French scenes do NOT have English subtitles, so if you don't speak the language fluently, you are on your own. It's a tribute to Irons' genius that one can understand most of what is going on in the film, and he makes a damn fine French movie star, extremely believable, right down to his subtle French accent in the English-speaking scenes. Tres bon, even though I was in the dark a lot of the time about exactly what was transpiring. -

Wanted to add that since then I've gotten a copy of the film with English subtitles, and it made all the difference. For instance, there's a fantastic scene where Ardant's character is in bed with Irons' character, sharing about her past in thorough detail, while he quietly listens, and knowing what she's actually saying in that scene was very enlightening to the rest of the movie.

Beguiling. Enchanting. Disquieting.

How can this film be best expressed? Certainly one for the Europhiles. A mix of French existentialist passion and a confused, complex east European feel add to its allurement.

How a film can so loosely, and yet successfully, hold together activities in the present, the past, Australia, Belgium, London, Bradford and Indonesia is mystifying.

It is certainly not a film to be understood in one sitting.

A first viewing is just an invitation to go deeper. A second and third viewing starts to draw out the cinematic metaphors.

The grading, purchasing, teasing and cleansing of wool and its parallels with the stages and issues of the principal characters' life experiences and relationships is subtle, if not initially tenuous.

By a fourth or fifth viewing the imagination is likely to be open to understand and build upon the film's light under currents and the key issues and challenges faced by each character.

However, just like gliders going around in circles seeking the thermals to rise higher, so too are the characters realising that they too are trapped in respective professional, relational and emotional impasses, and that they need to look for guidance to navigate a safe landing.

Everyone needs time to reflect, and yet that one commodity is in short supply for all concerned.

For each character help to confront their hurts and take steps towards a healing arrives, sometimes in unlikely forms - always out of the blue.

Enjoy.

What would you best name a movie set in Belgium. That's right Australia

Australia, the film not the country, is a multi-national production. Really multi - England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and yes, Australia, the country not the film, all have a financial hand in the matter. A good thing, too: blame is a lot easier to bear when split five ways. That's not to say the picture isn't watchable. In fact, it has devised a singular method of sustaining our interest: we simply cannot believe something that seems so murky is so murky. So we listen, we watch, certain that clarification is just a scene away. Of course, that scene never comes and our confusion never goes. This film doesn't end; it expires.

Before then, the script (by Jacques Audiard and Jean Gruault, who wrote for Truffaut in earlier and clearly better days) tries to get some new world"old world action going. We open in the outback of South Australia, 1955, where Edouard Pierson (Jeremy Irons) buys and sells wool hot off the shears. He lives a quiet and profitable life, a good dad to his motherless daughter, Sattie (Danielle Lyttleton).

Meanwhile, back in the Belgium he left before the war, Edouard's own mother and brother run a wool treatment plant, a failing family enterprise in dire need of revamping. Eddie gets summoned to help; Eddie hesitates; Eddie goes. Instantly, the language of choice switches from English to French (after all, this is a multi-national production), and Belgium's landscaped claustrophobia contrasts sharply with Australia's wide open spaces.

But wait. Seems that Eddie's famille is unaware of the very existence of Eddie's daughter. Why so darned secretive? Hmm, surely that will all get cleared up shortly. In the interim, Eddie falls hard for Jeanne (Fanny Ardant), who is very conservative and very married and very adoring of her only begotten son. Nevertheless, Eddie takes a flier. Eddie invites Jeanne for what amounts to a dirty weekend in London. Jeanne slaps Eddie; Jeanne hesitates; Jeanne goes. Why? Gee, maybe we'll find out in the next scene.

Except that the next scene finds Eddie's brother taking a flier too - literally, swooping and soaring in a glider plane. Indeed, planes of all sorts keep popping up here. That's called a symbol - you know, getting away from it all, fleeing the traps of tradition, slipping the surly bonds sort of stuff. Heck, Eddie was even a pilot during the war. "The war changed a lot for me," says Eddie. How? Another question, another wait.

Waiting too, the splendid cast all look slightly anesthetized, almost stunned, like patients straight off the dental chair. Worse, director Jean-Jacques Andrien (he's from Belgium) clings to a pace that is, well, slow. How slow? Finally, an answer: if this behemoth were going head-to- head with the ice age, I'd put heavy money on the glaciers. No matter. The expiration date finally arrives, at which point Australia, the film not the country, is down under, way down under. Benjamin Miller, Filmbay Editor.