'Faraway Downs': Baz Luhrmann amplifies Nicole Kidman's 'self-realization as a woman'

While filming Elvis, with the production halted after Tom Hanks' COVID-19 diagnosis, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann went back to the more than two million feet of film he shot for the 2008 film Australia, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and reimagined the film as a series, titled Faraway Downs (now on Disney+).

Series: Faraway Downs
Where to watch: Disney+
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, Brandon Walters, David Wenham, David Gulpilil
Number of episodes: 6

"The one thing I was doing was watching streaming series," Luhrmann told Yahoo Canada about what prompted him to transform Australia into a six-part series. "Back then, in the movies, there was so much pressure to make them short and concise."

"Streaming is kind of like a banquet, because in a banquet you have many, many courses, and you also have time between the courses to kind of absorb them. So I just felt like, wow this thing that's come along, episodic storytelling, really suits the epic nature of what I set out to do. This isn't a replacement for Australia, it's just a different way of telling the same story."

'Nicole's transformation and her self-realization as a woman ... is probably the biggest change'

Both Australia and Faraway Downs follows an English aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman), who travels to Australia to pressure her husband to sell a cattle ranch, Faraway Downs. When she discovers her husband has died, she teams up with a cattle drover, who simply goes by the name The Drover (Jackman), to protect the ranch.

The story is told through the eyes of a young boy, Nullah (Brandon Walters), who Lady Sarah meets when she arrives in Australia. Nullah is a biracial Indigenous boy whose family works at Faraway Downs. The young character is our entry point into Luhrmann exposing Australia's history of its racist "Stolen Generation" policy, where the government would remove mixed-race children from their families.

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Faraway Downs

Watch Faraway Downs on Disney+, subscriptions starting at $7.99/month

$8 at Disney+

Faraway Downs pairs footage we saw in Australia with new scenes we haven't seen, but one of the major adjustments is how the story of Lady Sarah is presented in this series. In this reimagining, Luhrmann has an added emphasis on the character's battle of being a woman in the male-dominated Australian outback, and a change to the ending of the film leaves the character to really stand on her own.

"If the philosophy is, as Drover says, you really can't own things, you can't own land or a child or a relationship, that just means you can't control it," Luhrmann said. "All you've got is your story, you better make sure you live a good one."

"Then at the end, the character that has changed the most is Nicole's character and what you hope she's realized is, OK she's got the station, she's got these relationships back on the station and she's got her own personal strength."

Luhrmann highlighted that another moment that's particularly significant in Faraway Downs, that wasn't in Australia, is when Kidman's character spends the night at Faraway Downs for the first time and she's told it's too dangerous for her, because she's a woman.

"Drover can see that she doesn't like being boxed in as a woman and he uses that to goat her into staying, for his own purpose," Luhrmann said. "So we're setting up that idea."

"[I was] leaning into the Indigenous child storytelling. But actually, I think Nicole's transformation and her self-realization as a woman, in a very male world, is probably the biggest change."

'That sound, there isn't a likeness to it out there in the world'

Another significant change in Faraway Downs, but something that's very much in line with Luhrmann's filmmaking, is the addition of graphics by Waringarri Aboriginal Arts and music from Indigenous artists.

"That was the fun bit for me," Luhrmann said. "By the way, they're all really young, ... the opening theme song, Budjerah was 19 years old, and he lives just down the road from me in Queensland. Electric Fields, I love them. ... They use this amazing, traditional Aboriginal choral music and sing to that. So that was kind of fresh."

"In all my projects I use contemporary music to peel away the rusty nostalgia, even if the subject's old fashioned. ... I don't expect the album to be huge or anything like that, it might be, but I do think it's a bit of a fresh sound that you can't quite put your finger on. That sound, there isn't a likeness to it out there in the world."

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Faraway Downs

Watch Faraway Downs on Disney+, subscriptions starting at $7.99/month

$8 at Disney+

'We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow'

When Australia was initially released, it wasn't a success in the America, but gained a significant following in Europe and Australia. It also premiered during a time of particular economic turmoil, and on U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, which likely contributed to how the film was received.

Now, in 2023, the world is experiencing a new host of economic, political and humanitarian issues. Thinking about what he hopes audiences take from Faraway Downs, watching this story in the context of this particular period of time, the filmmaker stressed that the theme is "you can't control anything."

"Pandemic, war, war in Europe. I mean, really, war in Europe? Did we ever really think that would happen again? What's happening in the Middle East ... and then economic disturbance," Luhrmann said. "I mean, this is just the tectonic plates of history, just slapping us in the face, and reminding us that we really are nothing, and that we can control nothing."

"I hope, in an entertaining way, it's not didactic, but I hope that people come away thinking, Yeah, I just better try and live a good story. Whatever my circumstances, have the courage, and by the way, I give a caveat, it's really easy to say this, it's very hard to do. I'm not particularly courageous, but have the courage to go, how can I feel present and live fully in my life. Because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow."