Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Denuded Nation


I’ve been taken aback by this poster for the movie Australia. While Nicole and Hugh are discretely cut off at their chests anyone with some carnal knowledge would know that they are striking a pose that one only employs during intense, vertical fornication. Bursting from the site of their union is a shocked Nicole, running from the ground zero of intimacy.

Australia has been fulsomely critiqued by those who see it as a vacuous and vapid vaudeville number, but I wonder whether we are missing the subtleties of Luhrmann’s work. Is this image deftly accentuating the penetration of the land? Mother Earth (our Nic), explored by Man (our Hugh), who thrusts into the wild, seemingly vacant space, seeking a fecund place to rest his tired, sweaty member. An act that, like many initial, passion driven penetrations, can bring turmoil and confusion after orgasm has passed. The desolate, vacant land where their groins should be, not a whisper of bush in sight. The never-meeting-twain of their submissive versus intrusive poses, revealing a nation divided, left desolate by a patriarchy that insists on women waxing their genitals. A nation in need of healing.

Or am I reading too much into it?

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