From its extraordinary music and lavish images to its romantically-built epitomes of a jagged cowboy and an uptight English aristocrat, Baz Luhrmann’s first movie since 2001’s “Moulin Rouge!,” “Australia,” feels like a Hollywood classic from a long-gone (with the wind) epoch, thus bringing to light emotional old-fashioned elements exposed in an innovative manner, in the midst of devastating war conflicts and harsh political affairs.

Bearing the name of a vast continent, the film is almost as expansive as Australia itself. No wonder the epic drama finds the time to develop several storylines that depict marvelously major moments in history. The picture includes the portrayal of unpleasant social differences, as well as that of racial policies implemented with regard to Australia’s native population during a prolonged colonial period.

“Australia” concentrates on the effects war had on people and places without failing to display a love story meant to bridge political matters and social perspectives and eventually construct a masterpiece. However, this particular entitlement is disputable, as Baz Luhrmann’s film operates as a deeply-rooted western for a couple of minutes, as a war epic for the next ten minutes and as a romance flick throughout the whole time, intertwining the weighty narrative’s cultural and political approaches.

A follower of artfulness and surplus that offer a production a metaphorical and highly wrought nature, Baz Luhrmann brings an unrepentantly gloomy and overdramatic visual into play. The helmer also tried to create an intense and genuine Australian picture, to change the direction of Hollywood cinematography standards and attempt to reveal a subjective version of history, seen through the eyes of the ordinary person whose life is unwillingly affected by external conflicts.

It’s 1939 and a British blue-blooded woman, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman), travels to Australia in order to find her cattleman spouse. She nevertheless discovers that he has been murdered (what a way to start a story!) and soon decides to take over the ranch duties, which include taking care of 1,500 head of cattle.

Our Scarlett is seduced by the attitude of a mixed-race young boy called Nullah (Brandon Walters), on the one hand, and by the rugged looks of Drover, who doesn’t even have a name, played by People’s Sexiest Man Alive, Hugh Jackman, on the other hand.

In spite of the fact that vivid and flamboyant incidents take place throughout the entire film, “Australia” manages to leave its feverish debut tension aside and focus on the romance between its lead characters. Wearisome pleasantry leaves ground for traditional melodrama and observes Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman melt slickly into the big-screen love flames that know the right way to our hearts.