What a strange movie. Over the course of its painfully long 165 minute running time, it patches together disjointed Australian cultural and historical references through a clichéd and overacted love story, barely managing to entertain at all in the process. Despite the substantial time spent with the characters, not once did I feel even remotely attached to them, and not once did I care about what happened to them. In addition, this is the kind of movie where missing a single word can make you miss entire plot points which are crucial to the rest of the story, which makes the often barely comprehensible accents particularly annoying.
The film's one saving grace is the cinematography: seeing this film in HD is glorious, with some of the best panoramas and shots I've seen in a long time. Some of the random elements, like the aboriginal singing and the harmonica music, do manage to give it some feeling of atmosphere at some points, which could be seen as a plus. Really, though, the production values and cinematography are the only reason this didn't get one star.
I had to watch the movie in three 45 minute segments to be able to withstand it. While there was clearly tons of potential in the basic story elements, setting and production values, it just ends up as a kind of Frankenstein of a movie which tries to fit too many things into too long of a running time. If Australia fascinates you, or if you like long yet visually beautiful movies, this might interest you. Otherwise, look elsewhere.
