Pretty Kelly

Noel Vera

Ned Kelly, as people even remotely familiar with the name like to
say, is a cultural icon in Australia. Though how much of an icon--
the size and scale and intensity of regard found in popular Aussie
imagination over a hundred years after his death--is rarely realized
by the foreign viewer (us) until you actually go Down Under and see
for yourself. Plays, novels, poems, even stamps and logos and a
series of impressive paintings by Sidney Nolan (that depict Kelly as
a black, blocky, menacing figure) abound; the actual armor Kelly and
his gang wore that fateful night in Glenrowan are now museum
artifacts, shared by several institutions (one of them, ironically
enough, being the Victorian Police Museum), and a reunion of all
four suits of armor in 2002 is notable enough to warrant a media
splash.

As for films, there are--count 'em--eleven, including this latest
one (plus an intriguing short that makes use of Nolan's paintings);
the first in 1906 is considered one of the earliest features ever
made (definitely in Australia, possibly in the world). That, plus a
Tony Richardson version starring a somewhat miscast Mick Jagger (can
you picture His Boniness wearing Kelly's heavy ironware?) and a
comedy done by Aussie filmmaker/comic Yahoo Serious rounds up this
short and shallow survey of Kellyiana. Aussies, you might say, are
very serious about Kelly.

Kelly seems to occupy a similar position in Australian culture that
Nat Turner does for African-Americans: to them, a figure of defiance
and pride; to others, of violence and terror. As with Kelly, the
meaning of Turner's short but bloody rebellion changes through its
story's various incarnations, depending on who's doing the telling
(this very process is recorded in Charles Burnett's brilliant if
incomplete "Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property").

Which brings us (finally, you might say) to Gregor Jordan's movie.
Jordan isn't just dealing with a hot potato here; he's dealing with
one of the most hallowed figures in Australian history, the rebel
bushranger who walks out in full view of English rifles, wearing
thick iron armor. The pressure to not analyze their subject, to look
at him closely from a less-than-glamorous or even slightly critical
point of view, must be enormous, and Jordan caves in without much
struggle--his movie is your standard-issue romanticized biopic of an
outlaw hero, complete with glamorous landscape photography and
beautiful (if fictional) love interest, played by Naomi Watts.

The flashpoint that starts everything, for example, the accusation
that Kelly stole a horse, is told in a grindingly one-sided manner--
while it was most likely true that Kelly didn't steal that
particular horse, he and his family have been known to steal horses
in the past, and the officer wasn't making the accusation on
completely unfounded suspicions. The film would have been better if
it had made this clearer, and would have been much better if it had
made clear that horse thievery was a practice Kelly's family among
many others resorted to because of their circumstances
as "selectors" (working under the selection system, they had to
develop the land granted to them--build a house, put up fencing,
grow crops--while paying off the government for the privilege, else
they would lose it; an impossible situation, as the plot was often
too small and the soil too poor for farming).

We don't see all that; all we see is a cowardly police officer
pulling a gun on noble Heath Ledger, sitting straight and tall and
unarmed in his saddle. The choice of Ledger is a dead giveaway, of
course--while Kelly has been described as good-looking, Ledger's
angelic blonde curls and Nordic cheekbones are almost impossibly so;
they throw you out of the picture and make you think of gay porn, or
the elves in "The Lord of the Rings" (and in fact Kelly's best
friend Joe Byrne is played by Orlando Bloom--Legolas in the "Ring"
movies). If Ledger wears bushy whiskers and a big moustache, why,
that's only a concession to the real Kelly, whose pictures are
regularly displayed; besides, there's nothing like making a pretty
actor ugly or unglamorous to show that he's being serious (see
Charlize Theron in "Monster").

The movie tends to sanitize both its sex and violence. Kelly and his
gang members have remarkably chaste encounters with women (or at
least chaste as portrayed here, with maybe the odd mischievous smile
flashed to signify that something is going on); when Ledger meets up
with Watts, they spend most of their time exchanging longing looks,
and giving each other tight hugs and kisses. At least Mick Jagger in
the Richardson version managed to inject a little electricity into
proceedings when, in reply to a lady's question as to why he wore
whiskers, he says: "because kissing a man without a beard is like
eating porridge without salt." He adds, with that inimitable Jagger
purr: "do you like salt in your porridge?"

As for the violence, the Kelly gang may not have been as
historically bloodthirsty as, say Jimmie Blacksmith or even Nat
Turner, but the amount of protestations Kelly makes here after he
takes a life borders on the ridiculous ("Why didn't you stop? I told
you to stop!"); it makes you think he's mugging for the benefit of
the audience, to make sure they understand that he does this despite
his natural inclinations, that at heart he's a noble, peace-loving
soul.

Jordan directs more or less competently otherwise, with an emphasis
on Australia's awe-inspiring landscapes and wildlife; too bad said
landscape and wildlife mostly have Ledger's voiceovers papered over
them "Thin Red Line"-style (only with "Thin," the nature shots and
hypnotic haikus seem like expressions of Terence Malick's ethereal
sensibility; here they act mostly as filler). As for Kelly's
climactic showdown in Glenrowan, Jordan could have used a little
less smoke, a little more--I don't know, John Boorman? Fred
Schepisi?--in his filmmaking: given the chance to realize on the big
screen the unforgettable sight of Kelly in his metal armor looming
in the smoke and gunfire, Jordan's final images look like they were
cribbed from outtakes of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Which is
a look, definitely--comic grotesquerie, in the midst of devastation--
but not one that Jordan probably intended.

(First published in Businessworld, 12/10/04)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)