Back to the land for 'Australia's' Baz Luhrmann

The most recognizable stars of Baz Luhrmann's cattle-drive drama “Australia” are Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. But on a December day nearly two years ago, even as Kidman flitted about Luhrmann's creative compound in the hills above Sydney, all of the Australian writer-director's attention was focused on an actor who is just as important a member of the ensemble: a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy who had never acted in anything.
Luhrmann's new movie is as ambitious as its weighty title suggests. Arriving Wednesday, "Australia" represents an unusual amalgam of his heightened, modern theatricality, perhaps best exemplified in his last film, 2001's mash-up musical "Moulin Rouge!," and classic old-school historical epics such as "Out of Africa," "Gone With the Wind" and "Lawrence of Arabia," three films Luhrmann often refers to. Blending those seemingly incompatible filmmaking styles -- over-the-top outrageous on one hand, formal and restrained on the other -- was not Luhrmann's only goal, although it turned into a daunting challenge. He also wanted to dramatize his native country's less-than-virtuous recent history: One of "Australia's" central conflicts hinges on the government's campaign to separate mixed-race children (half-Aboriginal, half-Caucasian) from their parents, a failed "stolen generation" attempt to make the population more white.

In the film, that half-caste child is named Nullah. It is this young boy who comes between, and ultimately helps bring together, the story's horseback-riding Drover (Jackman) and the English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) who has traveled to Australia to discover what has become of her husband and their failing cattle station. If the film was to succeed emotionally, Luhrmann knew on that day in late 2006, Nullah must not only captivate Drover and Lady Ashley, but also the audience.

The director and his casting department had discovered Brandon Walters among nearly 1,000 hopefuls in the tiny western Australia town of Broome, and the young boy had come to Luhrmann's estate, called Iona, with his family for a final meeting.

"It will be a little bit of play, and a little bit of serious work," Luhrmann said to Walters and his family of what he had in store for the boy that day, a schedule that included shooting plastic rockets with Kidman and singing beside Luhrmann's piano.