Australia

Hugh Jackman was not a familiar name in my peripheral knowledge of Hollywood stars till I watched the Oscars presentation. He was the host of that night. There were a lot of criticisms about the Academy shouldn't be spending an absurd amount of money on the presentation, in accordance with the economic times.

The decoration was subdued compared to the past Oscars. Against the backdrop of this blandness though was true talent. Hugh Jackman cracked a couple of jokes setting the mood of the night. He quipped about the past roles he'd played in, and he said the most challenging one was him, an Australian, playing an Australian, in a film called Australia. Then he sang, in a Broadway style for 5 minutes. I was awed. Boy could he sing!!

Australia was a movie about the lost generation of aboriginal children in Australia. These were children born of white fathers and aboriginal mothers. These "creamy" kids would be taken away from the aboriginal mothers and kept in schools run by churches, aiming to assimilate them into the white people and cutting their roots as half aboriginals.

Nicole Kidman, always elegant, played Lady Ashley. She came to "down under" from England to find Lord Ashley, who had invested in a cattle ranch, dead. Hugh Jackman was the cowboy sent to meet her and take her to the cattle ranch. It was hilarious when poised gal met tough guy and Nullah, the creamy child.

The film was funny, wistful, romantic and epic in scale and it attempted to tell the story of the lost generation against the backdrop of a love story and a war. In the end, I think the movie accomplished what it set out to do, to bridge the wrongs done to the aboriginals. In 2008, the Australian government apologized for what she has done to the lost generation.

It's a beautiful movie.

(Photo: http://movies.about.com/od/australia/ig/Australia-Photos/australiapic2.htm)