Australia Movie

Baz Luhrmann has a few points to make in "Australia," his World War II-era romantic epic starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman: points about the mixing of genres, untold stories of the country's involvement in the war and that even in the most brutal parts of his homeland, there is soul-moving beauty. "When I arrived there, I thought, 'This is going to be horrendous, shooting under these conditions,' " said Kidman of filming in Australia's rugged Northern Territory.

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.

Want to start a new country? Or put a fresh spin on an existing one? Well, after you've drafted a constitution and written the national anthem, there's something else you may want to do: make a movie. In the century or so since film was invented, movie making and nation building often have been parallel projects.