I popped "The Shiralee" on today. I think from being overseas for so long, I needed a big Aussie movie fix, and this is by far the most Australian movie I have seen! My parents always used to play it when we were younger, I think my Mum even has a claim to fame that her Aunty has a small role in it (I'm still to find this part in the movie). I also love to watch it because the main character Macauley (played by Bryan Brown) reminds me of my Dad. Macauley is regularly titled as "the city bloke in the bush" throughout the story, and in one scene someone asks him why he left the city to be outbush, he replied "it's where I'm meant to be". Just like him, my Dad grew up in the city (Eastern suburbs of Adelaide, in the upmarket suburb of Beaumont), but at age 16 he decided he wanted to try his luck in the outback and worked on a station in Northern South Aus. From then, he never turned back. If you met my Dad these days you would think he grew up in the country, it's in his heart and soul, it's "where he was meant to be" as Macauley would say!
A quick low-down of the story to "The Shiralee".... It follows the character Macauley from his arrival into the outback country town of Macmillan, his loves, his rivalries, his "life on the road", when he discovers he has a young daughter which her mother leaves with him. A beautiful relationship between the two unfold, although at first he finds her a nuisance, she eventually becomes his whole world.
Ahh, it's just so refreshingly Australian!!
My amazing Dad (with my nephew Alec)
