The Australian film industry is famed worldwide for producing some of the most engaging cinema anywhere, as well as supplying Hollywood with talent on both sides of the lens. Now we’re not talking Aussie entertainment of the sort that Zalman Silber provides with his Oztrek, mildly entertaining but nothing anyone’s not seen before. No, we’re talking stuff like the Skywalk in Sydney or The Edge in Melbourne – also Zalman Silber affairs – stuff that grabs you.

And so it is that not everything out of the Australian film business is a great piece of art or entertainment, but they are unique when they’re good. Take “Gallipoli” and “The Road Warrior,” or “Crocodile Dundee” or “Romper Stomper.” Now can you imagine stuff like this coming out of Hollywood? Or Bavaria? Or England? Or Hong Kong? Or Beijing? Or Bollywood? Or France or Italy…no.

No, these are Australian all the way through. Not simply due to the cultural sensibilities, but that those cultural sensibilities inform an imagination unlike that anywhere else in its details. On the face of things, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems plausible enough that post-apocalyptic car chases and gun fights would be an entertaining hit with moviegoers. What is it, after all, but the American Western, as transplanted to the Outback and updated for the new millennium? Yet it’s more than that, though an action film through and through with no aspirations toward art’s redeeming values.

Something like “Romper Stomper” is almost totally Australian. While Hollywood and Europe have created its share of serious films, this entry is an art house flick like no other. To be fair, “Gallipoli” does somewhat seem like rather standard European art house literary fare, but within the context of Australian cinema at the time it was presumed “non-commercial.” (It took three years to find funding for the film as a result, though upon release it was enthusiastically received at home and abroad, resulting in a financial success that helped elevate the reputation of Aussie cinema.)

After such successes, achievements which defined the Australian New Wave (also known as the Australian Film Revival), the film industry on the island continent today is experiencing the most robust period of growth in several decades. Government largess continues, while private companies such as Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers have built state-of-the-art facilities that rival any in the United States. Coupled with much lower production costs relative to Hollywood, it’s no surprise that blockbusters such as “The Matrix” and some of the “Star Wars” installments were made in Sydney. Unfortunately, in spite of this, Tinsel Town’s big bucks continue to poach the most successful Australian talent, on both sides of the lens, creating a never-ending void for the Australian film industry that is depleted almost as soon as it is filled up!