History can be both instructive and alienating. In the new abc-tv documentary series 100 Years-The Australian Story (running over five weeks from March 14), no matter how many times we're told Australia has reinvented itself as a nation, we're left with the sense of it tied to the past. Pauline Hanson's infamous "swamped by Asians" parliamentary speech of 1996 seems but a reprise of Prime Minister Edmund Barton's White Australia blueprint nearly a century before. Yet the past is another country. And 100 Years reacquaints us with such alien figures as postwar Prime Ministers Ben Chifley, who spoke in a premedia age drone, and Robert Menzies, at whose press conferences journalists rose as if before royalty.
To watch history's ability to both echo and estrange makes for fascinating viewing. Devised by Paul Kelly, former editor-in-chief of The Australian, and Sue Spencer, producer-director of the acclaimed Labor in Power series, 100 Years is a political history of Australia since Federation, scripted as a series of gladiatorial stoushes with contemporary resonance: In "Child of Empire," the fight over World War I conscription segues into the current repub-lican debate; in "Rise and Fall of White Australia," Barton's Immigration Restriction Bill lives on in One Nation; in "Land of the Fair Go," Australia's early protectionist squabbles have their modern equivalent in concerns over globalization; "Unfinished Business" charts the continuing divide between black and white Australia; "Farewell Great and Powerful Friends" looks at how Australia has sought its identity on the battlefield, from Gallipoli to East Timor.
Just as conspicuous in 100 Years are the competing desires to educate and entertain. The opening music is ominous-it's the sort of synthesized fanfare we've all heard in classroom documentaries as kids. Soon, Linda Cropper's earthy narration leads us into a deft mix of archival footage, analysis, and recreated political battles-employing actors' voices and elegant pans of conference halls. The respectful approach recalls the work of U.S. documentary maker Ken Burns. But what saves 100 Years from over-earnestness is an entertaining spirit that continually breaks through the formality. "Australian women are the only people who give a damn what kind of knickers the Queen is wearing," rants Germaine Greer at one point during "Child of Empire." "The English don't care a bit."
Like a ringside referee, presenter Kelly bobs up intermittently to offer his judgments. The effect is jarring, since the documentary's delicate layering of narration, image and expert commentary speaks for itself. His contention that "Australia is a country that has largely reinvented itself" hardly needs stressing, especially after we've been fed the facts of the country's postwar migration boom. At the conclusion of "Land of the Fair Go," Kelly says Aust-ralia's challenge is to create "a marriage between a market economy and a decent social order." At which point the viewer might wonder whether this is political history or the world according to Kelly.
He does much better off camera, eliciting moments of surprising candor from many of his interviewees. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser laments Aust-ralia's involvement in Vietnam, while current leader John Howard, asked why he remains a monarchist, replies: "It's a reflection of my Burkean conservatism." The late Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins admits his people have been "too passive" in their dependency on welfare, while Singapore's former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew says Australia is not quite part of Asia: "I would say a partner, not a family member yet."
The tightrope that history treads is made thrillingly clear in an interview with the Queen's former assistant private secretary William Heseltine. If then Governor General John Kerr had sought the Queen's counsel before sacking Prime Minister Gough Whitlam during the constitutional crisis of 1975, "she would have advised him to play out the situation a little longer," he tells Kelly.
It's not every day that Australia's past five Prime Ministers are assembled, and this pantheon is alone worth tuning in for. As political performers go, they're a mixed bunch. One is reminded of Whitlam's knack for grandiose understatement ("Of course it came off pretty well," he remarks of his trend-setting trip to China), Fraser's decency ("We're losing the whole idea of an egalitarian society," he says), and Howard's tiny repertoire of facial expressions. What Bob Hawke says is not particularly illuminating ("I think Gallipoli did a hell of a lot to get into the minds of Australians that we were Australians"), but what fantastic hand-acting and hair! In contrast, Paul Keating remains the brilliant orator: "If you want to be in the business of throwing thunderbolts," he says of the legacy of former N.S.W. Premier Jack Lang, "you may as well try to look as much like Zeus as you can."
or three years the filmmakers have rummaged the national screen and sound archive of ScreenSound Australia, and they come up with the goods. There's anthropologist Baldwin Spencer's fragile first footage of Aboriginal rain dancers in Central Australia, and Menzies' loving home movie of his 1935 pilgrimage to England ("Our journey to Mecca has ended," he records in his diary). A '60s vox pop on Asian immigration shows how little Australians have changed: "The min-ute you let 'em in, you'll get overrun with them," croaks a bloke in the pub; "We're all supposed to be brothers and sisters, aren't we?" chirps a lady in Dame Edna glasses.
Such priceless snippets are more revealing than any dramatized political debate or Burnsian pan of empty, overstuffed armchairs. Politics, for all its pomp, is ultimately personal-and the generally commendable 100 Years doesn't let us forget this. Just ask the swimsuit lady of 1949, the show's one uncredited star: "Mr. Menzies is such a good-looking man and he speaks so nicely," she says, splayed out on the beach. "Anyway, you get fined 2 if you don't vote."