'Oz' brings the epic back to film

Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman play out their romance against Australia's majestic scenery

By Michael Osborn Entertainment reporter, BBC News

The ambitious and costly new film Australia is an epic in every sense of the word.

It has two of the world's biggest film stars in its lead roles, uses the vast and stunning backdrop of that country's landscape - and weighs in at an impressive two-and-a-half hours.

Four years in the making, film-maker Baz Luhrmann's "cinematic banquet", starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, combines a sweeping romance, the chaos of war and a social problem which he says still "stains" Australian history.

"The bombing of Darwin was a good action scene, but the stolen generation stopped me in its tracks," says Luhrmann, whose other films include Moulin Rouge and Strictly Ballroom.

Stars including Nicole Kidman talk about Australia at its UK premiere

At the heart of the 1940s-set movie is a mixed race European-Aboriginal child, Nullah.

For decades, the so-called "creamies" were forcibly removed from their families and raised in institutions as part of official government policy.

"It had never been told... and I was in a position to do that," Luhrmann explains.

Jackman - looking more urbane and Hollywood than his rough-hewn character - adds: "There are parts of this movie that play on stereotypes of Australia.

"But the centre of the story is something I never heard about at school - there wasn't one Aboriginal kid there.

'Dying' craft

"This film deepened the whole experience - my son was on set and would do lessons with Aboriginal children."

Luhrmann says this "bitter pill" of an issue is "put inside a great big entertainment" of a film which boldly crosses several cinematic genres.

If there is an incredible thing in this movie, it is that boy Baz Luhrmann on Australia star Brandon Walters (pictured)

The director chose to shoot in the landscape with vast crews, which he regards as a "dying" craft as special effects and sound studios take over.

"For a variety of reasons it will never happen in this manner again," he says.

Fellow Australian Jackman, who was recently announced as the host of next year's Oscars, paid tribute to Luhrmann, despite fainting in the searing heat on location.

"It was an absolute privilege to be in a film set in Australia with Australian everything including the title, it was inconceivable 20 years ago," he says.

Jackman calls the finished product "bold in every way".

Bond moment

"We were called to do in one film what we might do in five