Travelling across the harsh continent of Australia can be too much for even the strongest of us. We’re familiar with the wild bands of marauders in the Mad Max series, and witnessed horrific acts of violence in 2005’s The Proposition. But the events that unfold in Rachel Perkins’s newest addition to the Australian road movie cannon, Brand Nue Dae, can only be described in one word: adorable. That’s right, this is one cute Aussie musical.
Set in 1969, the film follows Willie (Rocky McKenzie), a teenage Aborigine, on a musical road trip through West Australia. His journey begins when he runs away from his repressive Catholic boarding school and its paternalistic German priest, Father Benedictus (Geoffrey Rush). Longing for his crush, Rosie (Jessica Mauboy), he embarks for his hometown of Broome, which lies 1,400 miles across the Australian continent.
Luckily for Willie, he runs into an Aboriginal bum (Ernie Dingo) and a pair of hippies (Missy Higgins and Tom Budge) on the way. Their eccentric group brightens the journey, adding musical levity to the winding, sometimes hostile trip through the Outback.
At the center of this feel-good movie is a political message. The film’s central song features the line, “There’s nothing I would rather be/Than to be an Aborigine/And watch you take my precious land away,” highlighting the uneasy relationship the indigenous and Caucasian populations of Australia had in the 1960s. Still, in its optimistic way, Bran Nue Dae focuses more on celebrating Aboriginal culture and the unity of the human race than bemoaning the inequality.
Balancing out the political themes, Bran Nue Dae is also a coming-of-age story. Willie begins as a quiet boy: too shy to talk to Rosie, too obedient to question his mother’s desire for him to become a priest, too polite to respond to Father Benedictus’s disparaging comments about the Aborigines. But after running away and traversing the Australian continent, he finds his voice.
Production-wise, Bran Nue Dae is a great musical, with emphasis on the word “musical.” The music, adapted from the original stage performance in 1990, is by far the best part of the film. The songs are catchy and anthemic, and they’ll have you whistling about an Australian road trip you’ve never taken for days afterward. The Bollywood-style dance numbers are not quite worthy of the music, but their awkwardness adds an endearing quality.
Like many musicals, the movie is a little overdone, but not to a fault. In fact, it’s the film’s quirkiness that makes it work, and Bran Nue Dae wouldn’t be the same without some of its more bizarre scenes. The acting isn’t spectacular either, and the lip-synching doesn’t always, well … synch. But in spite of its shortcomings, the movie’s charm will keep you smiling.
If you like musicals, this is definitely the movie for you. The songs will make you want to dance, and the absurd story line will make you forget that the singing and the lips don’t quite match up. In the end, you’ll come out wishing that you too were an Aborigine.
