Australia

Ah, the Second World War. Nations were battling over political ideologies. Bombs were dropping. Love was in the air. Families were broken up. Young lovers were separated. Some people got it back. Others didn't. However, extraordinary circumstance can lead to extraordinary stories.
Australia is set at the outset of the Japanese joining World War II. It's about a British socialite who travels to Australia to help resuscitate the cattle property owned by her husband and in the process falls in love with the country, the aboriginal people, and a rough cattle drover. The film starts quickly and if you don't pay attention you could miss a few things. It switches character perspectives very quickly while combining specific dialogue that is difficult to follow. After that speed bump it settles into a solid romance film. It feels very much like an Australian Casablanca — two star-crossed lovers battling the circumstance of the war to be with each other. The film adds in some racial themes regarding the treatment of aboriginals to add a made-in-Australia authenticity to the film. All in all, it won't blow you away but it will tug on some heart strings.
The generations of people that have come since World War II will never know how it effected the lives of the people. We have no great war ourselves — other than the war on terrorism — which hardly hits as close to home. Films like Australia and Casablanca serve to educate and teach. Regardless of whether you like romance films or not these films will always serve to remind us how valuable the people we love are and how not to take them for granted.