Walkabout (1971) User Reviews (195)

Who Says Silent Cinema Is Dead?

[loza-1 · 8/10 · 8 June 2005]

Although this is a sound film, and the characters talk to one another, this film could have been made just as well in the 1920s. It does not really need sound.

The film is about nature, and man's relationship with it. If a civilised person were left out in the desert, then they would soon die. But, as this film shows, there are people and creatures living out there quite happily.

The film has been criticised for having a weak beginning and a weak end. But where does the story of this film start? And where and when would you end it? Yes you can end it when the two children get back to civilisation. But does the story end there? No. Because of their experiences, things are never going to be the same again. And for them, the story has not finished, it is only just beginning.

I have seen this film several times and I notice something different every time I see it.

Another opinion

[jdwilliams-2 · 8/10 · 11 July 2005]

As far as comments about Roeg's going overboard with his message of "nature/aborigine good, industrialisation/white men bad," this is a simplistic way of reading it. First of all, every director has his or her own style, and Roeg started as a cinematographer--his movies tend to contain long, meditative (or, boring, depending on one's view) visual passages. Roeg floods the screen with cascades of images, by turns repetitive and contrasting, much as a poet uses the sounds and rhythms of words, as well as their semantic content, to create "meaning" in the context of the poem.

To expect Roeg not to dwell on images is to expect Tolstoy not to go off on 20-page rants about how the lack of Napoleon would necessitate another to fill his historical role. One overlooks idiosyncracies in one's friends.

I found the movie much more powerful than I expected. My only disappointment with the Criterion DVD release is with the commentaries. I would love to have heard more about the story, and it would have been nice to have heard from David Gulpilil, whose role as the aborigine was a watershed in Australian cinema, as noted in the IMDb article on his career.

Unforgettable, potent entertainment.

[Hey_Sweden · 8/10 · 3 November 2020]

A teenaged girl (ever-lovely Jenny Agutter) and her young brother (Lucien John, a.k.a. Luc Roeg, the directors' son) are stranded in the desolate Australian outback. They really have no clear idea of where to go or what to do, but they meet a stranger who saves their lives. He is an aborigine (Aussie icon David Gulpilil) who is partaking in the ritual known as "Walkabout", wherein he temporarily leaves his tribe to go off on his own and live off the land.

The experiences between these three young people form the balance of this excellent film. The culture clash is immediate, as the two urbanized white kids struggle to make themselves understood by the aborigine. But they ultimately become rather inseparable.

Along the way, they encounter all sorts of flora and fauna. "Walkabout" is highly noteworthy for its respect for Nature, and is filled with many visual wonders. Given that director Nicolas Roeg had been a camera operator and cinematographer, it's no surprise that the film *looks* beautiful, and it's set to a haunting and lovely John Barry score.

Three highly engaging performances anchor the film. Agutter has a naturally sexy presence, and Roeg doesn't miss opportunities to let the camera take in every aspect of her body. His son does a nice job as the brother, avoiding being overly cutesy and always relaxed on screen. Gulpilil proved to be a real find in his film debut. Another Aussie favourite, John Meillon, appears briefly as the white kids' father.

"Walkabout" was largely improvised. The Edward Bond script, based on a novel by Donald G. Payne, was actually only 14 pages or so. Knowing this, it makes the acting that much more impressive, as the cast react instinctively to the scenes & settings.

Overall, this is one of *the* iconic Australian films, and is a must-see for movie lovers interested in cinema from this part of the world.

Eight out of 10.

Landmark near masterpiece of the cultural clash between nature and civilisation

[Filmtribute · 10/10 · 25 April 2002]

Director Nicolas Roeg's ('Don't Look Now') cinematographic skills and admiration pay especial tribute to Walkabout's powerful combination of Australia's awesome scenic diversity and the sensual Jenny Agutter, and the whole effect is embellished by John Barry's sublimely magical score. I would hasten to add that as well as being very pleasing to watch, enhanced by Roeg's voyeuristic use of the camera, Agutter provides a skilful performance as a prejudiced unworldly teenager, who is naively unaware of the sexuality she exudes whether naked or wearing her high cut school skirt. Although it was a somewhat amusing shock to recently discover that a body double was employed for Agutter in the shower scenes for 'An American Werewolf in London', no such deceit was used in this film. Immediately after filming 'Walkabout', Agutter reprised her BBC serialisation role of two years earlier as Bobbie for Lionel Jeffries' sumptuous version of Edith Nesbit's 'The Railway Children', ensuring her immortalization as an iconographic beauty. She graduated thirty years on into the role of the mother for a Carlton TV production and is currently involved in producing a film script about the life of the author.

On a deadly picnic into the desert a father (John Meillon; 'Crocodile Dundee') inexplicably snaps, shooting at his two children before torching his car and turning the gun on himself. Now the children, absurdly kitted out in their formal school uniforms, are lost and carelessly lose their provisions, except for the transistor radio with its inane babble being another illustration of how hopeless our technology is against nature. Fortuitously they stumble upon an oasis and find their only saviour in the form of an Aborigine (David Gulpilil; 'Rabbit Proof Fence') on a rites-of-passage walkabout. The seven year old boy (Lucien John, the director's son) happily has a child's ability to communicate with the Aborigine despite the language barrier, something his older sister never grasps, deftly demonstrated on their first encounter when she is increasingly frustrated by the lack of comprehension of her demands for water. Roeg crosscuts stunning kaleidoscopic images of the physical landscape and its critters, with the killing of animals and the domestic butchering of joints of meat to give a stark contrast between nature and civilisation. However, given this was his first solo effort, his overworked montages can be a little irritating and confusing, and show off the cinematographer rather than the director in Roeg.

The director emphasises the unrealised sexual tension by explicitly marrying shots of both the teenagers with suggestive trees in the form of intertwined human limbs, as well as providing us with a diverting interlude involving a group of meteorologists. The deeply sad misunderstanding of the two cultures gives poignancy to the film that is its strength, especially delineated by the Aborigine's tribal courtship dance for Agutter, which only serves to terrify her and increase her distrust. Her lack of emotion for their former helpmate is staggering. When faced with a dangling corpse the girl asks trivial questions of her brother about his breakfast whilst pointlessly picking ants off the body. The tragic outcome is also indicative of the current state of Aboriginal life expectancy with a higher proportion dying through accident, assault and self-harm than any other Australian demographic group.

The failure of her parents to prepare her for the change from childhood may have contributed to the tragedy, and it is only on reflection years later, living the same life as her parents and similarly caged in an apartment block, that Agutter's character senses that maybe she missed her chance. It is interesting to note that the children are deliberately English to highlight the cultural clash between the European settlers and the original inhabitants of this ancient land, and I wonder if similarly white Australians would have had any more understanding of the indigenous customs of the Aborigine boy. 'Walkabout' is a far more visual depiction of sexual awakening colliding with alien cultures than that other famous picnic that goes horribly wrong in Peter Weir's 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (which this predates by four years), with its metaphorically implied unease centred on a sacred Aboriginal site that eventually destroys the established order of a Ladies College.

'Walkabout' is as relevant today as when it was released in the era of '70's industrialisation with the Kakadu National Park once again under threat from a new uranium mine on its boundary. The Northern Territory's tribe Mirrar is currently involved in this dispute over land rights and excavations, although mining was temporarily ceased on Aboriginal land in the mid 1990's. This is a sensitive issue as Australia's economy relies on the export of uranium in the production of nuclear power, and Aborigines oppose the exploitation of the Earth's resources for profit. The company at the centre of this discord also operates the Ranger mine which is depicted along with the rock band Midnight Oil (well known for their campaigning land rights missive 'Beds Are Burning') in eX de Medici's 'Nothing's As Precious As A Hole In The Ground', a recent acquisition by Australia's National Portrait Gallery.

Despite last year's rush by some of Hollywood's well-known directors returning home to make Aboriginal films, including Phillip Noyce's 'Rabbit Proof Fence' (released 21 February) about the 'Stolen Generation', and 'Yolngu Boy' which did well at a film festival in Colorado, I sadly suspect very few of us in the UK are likely to see them. Apparently there has not been a commercial success for a black-themed movie since 1955's 'Jedda', the first Australian feature to star Aboriginal actors. If the hope of a '70's New Wave style revival is to be realised for Australian cinema, surely it is time for the industry worldwide to wake up to the fact that a wealth of film exists outside of Hollywood, and that the viewing public may actually welcome some variety.

With the release of the director's full cut in 1998 both the DVD and the video are unusually available for the UK as well as the US from Amazon.

INNOCENCE

[sunsix · 14 April 2004]

Goodness gracious it's amazing how many reviewers missed the most obvious aspect of the film. This tale is about innocence and it approaches that from many different angles. As for Roeg practicing camera tricks-maybe today these are tricks but at the time the style was a pioneering method of telling and showing psychological elements, wasted on todays audiences. Roeg presents innocence in juxtaposition with the hardness and neuroses of society, not as WHITEMAN BAD but as society, modern society makes us very neurotic by taking away our innocence. Roeg makes an brilliant point and stylizes a mostly nonverbal experience by letting us journey with children all on the cusp of some new stage of growth. This movie is a small masterpiece!!

A very beautiful and mysterious film.

[seandchoi · 10/10 · 23 March 2002]

"In Australia, when an Aborigine man-child reaches sixteen, he is sent out into the land. For months he must live from it. Sleep on it. Eat of its fruit and flesh. Stay alive. Even if it means killing his fellow creatures. The Aborigines call it the WALKABOUT. This is the story of a 'WALKABOUT'." Thus begins Nicolas Roeg's 1971 debut feature, "Walkabout", one of the most beautiful, mystical, and magical film I've had the privilege of seeing as a filmgoer. Seeing it again recently on the beautiful Criterion edition DVD, I was once more captivated by this film as it slowly worked its magic on me. The "plot" of "Walkabout" is simplicity itself: a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother (the director's son in real life, Lucien John Roeg--billed "Lucien John" on the credits) are stranded on an Australian outback as their father, who took them out for a picnic, suddenly and inexplicably commits suicide. The two of them are thus left wandering by themselves and it looks as if they will die in the vast wilderness--until they encounter an Aborigine boy who is on his "walkabout," an Aborigine rite of passage into manhood. For a time these kids travel together as a trio and the Aborigine's skills in hunting and finding water allow them to survive. And although the girl and her brother will eventually find their way back to civilization, for a brief unspecified length of time the exotic Australian outback becomes a wondrous and mystical place where their story of survival unfolds. If you've seen this film, you know that the brief synopsis above doesn't really touch what is so special about "Walkabout." And that is because "Walkabout" isn't really about plot, like more conventional films. It is one of those rare films like Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock," Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven," and Wim Wender's "Wings of Desire" which are all about evoking a kind of sad and bittersweet emotional response from us. I think that is what "Walkabout" is mostly about. The overall impact of this film "hits you in the heart" and very impressionable viewers might be stirred in their emotions to the point of swooning in the scene at the end where the girl, now a married woman, remembers her idyllic days happily swimming in one of the outback's water holes Nicolas Roeg was not only the director of "Walkabout" but also its cinematographer. And his photography in this film is unbearably beautiful and sumptuous. "Walkabout" is without a doubt one of the most gorgeous color films ever made. Shot on location in the Australian outback--perhaps one of the most exotic places on earth--"Walkabout" has a visual grandeur that is reminiscent of passages from David Lean's "Lawrence of Arabia" and John Ford's "The Searchers." Never has the "voodoo of location shooting" (as Werner Herzog likes to call it) been more manifest than in this film. In fact, the exotic and unique location in which it was shot, coupled with Roeg's masterful cinematography, feels like one of the main characters in "Walkabout." The film's location adds a mystical (almost spiritual) and meditative dimension to it which lingers in the viewer's mind--haunting it long after the film is over. If Roeg's photography is one of the film's main characters, so is John Barry's legendary and justly famous score. Maybe it's the harp used in the score, or the subtle billowing quality of its composition (i.e. the way its beautiful melody gently builds and builds), but the music in this film simply soars. It moves me like no other score I've ever heard. It feels completely transcendent, as if it exists outside time and space altogether--but gently swooping down from time to time, "kissing" this film's images with aching sweetness. All of the above elements work together to form a film-viewing experience that inspires both beauty and awe in us. The film's message is not necessarily that life in the outback is better than life in a modern civilization, but that no matter where you happen to find yourself (even if that happens to be a wilderness like the Australian outback), if you have resources that meet your basic needs, it can become your "home" for a time. And that afterwards there is bitter-sweetness in reminiscing about those "good times" you were fortunate enough to have--to which you can never return again.

Oh the 70s...

[bowlofsoul23 · 7/10 · 4 April 2006]

Before specifically talking about the film, I just have to ponder the following question: Why do all films that take place in the 70s feel so 70s? Considering the fact that this movie was made in 1971, one must conclude that Roeg was a trend-setter. For my personal tastes, he went a little overboard with the freeze frames, jump cutting, radical though hardly subtle politics, and juxtaposition of jarring images. Aboriginal tearing into meat, Australian white butcher cutting meat in a sanitized setting, back to the Aboriginal, back to the butcher, and back again to the Aboriginal. And what's with all the scenes involving decomposing bodies? Yes, savage innocence, evil imperialists, death, nature vs. industrialization, corruption of a purer way of life, we see all these themes, but it would have been preferable to see it without being visually and aurally clubbed over the head like the poor animals in the outback are.

Disregarding that aspect, I quite liked the story of two white children, one very young, the other pubescent (and lingeringly shot), who get stuck in the Outback after their patriarchal and borderline psycho father is blown up. They then struggle to make it in the wild, and come upon an Aboriginal boy who is on a "walkabout", or a rite of passage journey that boys that age traditionally undertake in order to prove their worthiness as a man. This of course, becomes their walkabout, and they too become "wild" and free. Eventually, they make it back to "civilization", the first sign of this being a beautiful shot of the girl (whose name we never know- thus making it even more symbolic), coming into a clearing and gliding her hand over a man-made fence while walking backwards. What could be more symbolic of the Western values of property and ownership than a fence? She is ecstatic to be near an environment she holds dear, but her younger and more adaptable brother is less so, and the Aboriginal boy is even less so, which leads to tragic consequences.

The movie feels dated, not only in terms of camera-work but also thematically. It's no longer the job of white people to romanticize "savage" peoples, but rather to allow peoples to define themselves. Perhaps Roeg, in some small way, recognized this, thus choosing to have the Aboriginal boy speak his language and not provide us with subtitles. We could never understand totally, though we can sympathize.

cococravescinema.blogspot.com

The Australian outback comes alive.

[Tophee · 10/10 · 28 February 1999]

Superb cinematography, the Australian outback comes alive in this film of self discovery and regret. Agutter plays the English girl brilliantly, incapable of comprehending anybody or anything that doesn't conform to her middle-class values and upbringing. Roeg is also excellent as her brother, adapting to each and every change in circumstance as only children can. I have watched this movie many times, and always get something new from it. Highly recommended to anyone, although parents might want to watch it before letting their kids see it.

Staggering in its vision and scope, but not very emotional...

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 6 September 2005]

Cinematographer Nicolas Roeg turned first-time director here with a highly visceral and thought-provoking film about two Australian city children stranded in the hot, dusty Outback. They meet a young Aborigine and hope he will lead them back to civilization. Lots of artistic shots of insects and extreme closeups of fascinating reptiles have convinced people this must be a masterpiece (funny, Randal Kleiser's "The Blue Lagoon" had similar shots, and no one praises that!). The story exposition is rather muffled, and the finale is pretentious, but Jenny Agutter certainly gives the film a boost (her beauty is astonishing, especially in a memorable nude swimming scene). Overall, Roeg's position on these characters and their plight feels somewhat indifferent; he's as aloof from them as he is from the audience, and the viewer may walk away feeling they were abandoned as well. **1/2 from ****

Outstanding commentary on cultural clashes, though a bit puzzling at times.

[Aldanoli · 10/10 · 1 May 1999]

A sometimes puzzling, sometimes enigmatic, but always interesting movie, although it is a bit easier to understand if you've read the novel on which it's based. Jenny Agutter is particularly good as the English girl who suddenly finds herself stranded in the desert with her younger brother, and was at just the right age--about 16--to play the part. David Gulpilil as the aborigine youth "gone walkabout" who rescues them is also excellent. The uncomfortable contrasts between European and aboriginal cultures are undeniably accurate, and the use of A. E. Housman's poem, "Into my heart an air that kills" adds additional poignancy to the already bittersweet ending.

Bonjour Tristesse Tropique

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 12 August 2006]

Nicholas Roeg has this thing for sex and hidden menace. He even turns the fork of a tree into an obscene photograph. And the teen aged Jenny Agutter is no help either, running around in this skimpy skirt or in her underwear or sometimes nothing at all, which is nice. Meanwhile anything can happen. There's death around every corner.

It's a simple story on the face of it. A father -- one of those Richard Cory types -- takes his kids (Agutter and Luc Roeg) for a drive into the desert. He parks the car for a picnic in the middle of nowhere and tries to shoot them -- rather a shocking moment since the film hasn't set it up. Failing that, he sets fire to the car and blows out his brains.

The two kids must get home but they go about it in the dumbest way imaginable. Instead of following the car's tire tracks back to a road they take off in a random direction. And, really, since they were driven inland from Sidney (Adelaide in the novel), they ought to head east towards the sea, meaning they should walk towards the rising sun.

But, man, these kids are out of their element. If it weren't for their accidentally running into aboriginal David Gumpilil, they wouldn't get very far. Fortunately he knows how to extract a living from what seems to be a most unpromising environment. He hunts and he gathers, as hunters and gatherers do, and there are some unpleasant scenes of real animals being speared to death. It's like watching a movie in Anthropology 101. Still, Gumpilil kills only to eat, and otherwise lives in harmony with nature.

Roeg's film alas contrasts Gumpilil's cheerful optimism and, finally, his mortal love for Agutter, with the ways of the white folks. They seem uniformly nuts, wasteful, and unfriendly. They shoot and kill buffalo for no evident reason and leave the carcass to actively rot -- and I mean "actively." A nice close up shot of a decomposing buffalo's mouth crawling with maggots. Gag me with a spoon! The ways of the white folks are represented mainly by abandoned farmhouses and an abandoned mine, filled with rusting junk.

It's an odd story. For all the troubles they've been through, neither Agutter nor her brother seems particularly disturbed. After their father eats his gun, there's no reaction to it, and there is only the briefest reference to it late in the story. Luc Roeg asks Agutter why his father killed himself and she brushes it off with, "I don't know." I don't know why he's dead either. I don't know why Gumpilil props himself up in a tree and dies after courting Agutter in this spooky manner. Maybe it was something he ate. If Roeg's view of Western civilization is justified, somebody should have explained to Gumpilil that it's best for him to have nothing to do with any of them, Agutter's definitive nubility notwithstanding. But these two deaths, like many other things in the film, go unexplained, as they might in real life.

There's a tacked-on epilogue with Agutter married but still dreaming of her walkabout. A. E. Houseman's poem makes it all seem wistful and full of contentment, although that's not exactly what the film has shown us. What we've witnessed is a tragedy in slow motion, sometimes languorous. When musing about the largely unexplained and partly accidental character of the narrative, the director had an interesting observation. It's rather like life, isn't it? It has a beginning and an end. "You're born and then you die, and everything in between is an anecdote."

In any case, you are guaranteed to have a hard time shaking this one out of your memory.

What's this talk about "Walkabout"

[rlcsljo · 8/10 · 30 July 2000]

In the late sixties and early seventies there was an unusual kind of excitement when you went to the movies. It probably had not happened since movies were first invented and has not happened since in commercial theatrical releases. This was the feeling of "I don't know what is going to happen next"! What happened one day was completely unexpected when I first saw the opening of "Walkabout". The introduction gave almost no clue as to what was to come next, but it was visually and aurally fascinating. The rapidity in which the plot shifted gears made you more sympathetic to the plight of our main characters. The sudden appearance of the Aborigine boy in the nick of time and his taking them under his wing. Then surprises of all surprises--our heroine does many nude scenes. Then her final look of yearning at the end suddenly explains it all. All the while Roeg is doing a travelogue of the Australian outback. This movie is pure genius from beginning to end. A must for any movie collection.

Another Australia

[Dadge · 7/10 · 28 October 2006]

It made a refreshing change to find this film on TV this weekend. I knew nothing about it but from the beginning I could tell it would be interesting and good. First, it had that early 70s feel about it: edgy, a bit experimental, with long brooding shots of people and places. Second, the opening shocking scenes drew me in to wondering what would happen to the two children. Third, Jenny Agutter looks absolutely fantastic: who cares about the slow pace when you've got such a beautiful face (sic) to look at? As the film progressed, I particularly admired the young boy's performance - remarkable considering the conditions he had to perform in. There are also many great shots of Australian scenery and wildlife. I was a bit irritated by the obvious attempts by the director to "raise the heat" but I concede that much of it was justified. The film does appear to drag (even more!) towards the end, but I was fascinated by the abandoned places.

At the end I saw that it was a Nic Roeg film and that explained quite a lot!

Too much of its time

[paul2001sw-1 · 3/10 · 14 February 2017]

Nick Roeg's 'Walkabout' is a highly unusual film. A pair of English children, lost in the Australian outback after the death of their father, are looked after by a young Aborigianal who is apparently completely unfamiliar with people of European descent. Cue lots of close up photography of wildlife, not a lot of dialogue, and a decidedly trippy view of the psychology of being lost in the desert. What really didn't work for me in this movie was the performances of Jenny Augutter and the director's son Luc and as the English children: they're both pretty stiff, and neither the terror of their situation, and their presumed grief, are well conveyed. The emotionless nature of their experience reduces the impact of the film's inherently tragic ending. 'Walkabout' was made in 1973; and overall it feels bold but dated, a product of its time.

Beautiful lead character and a film with a subtle message

[abethell-2 · 17 April 2004]

I first remember seeing this film as a late teenager in about 1979. Therefore what most vividly stuck in my mind was the lead character played by a beautiful blonde English girl, Jenny Agutter, Specifically the nude scenes of her swimming and washing.

On a less superficial level it is a film with a point-something along the lines of the graciousness of Aborigines and their ability to live in harsh surrounds, and the destructive nature of suburban life in a flat in a major city.

I think it would be a film, like Jedda, that will always be on reference for the Australian Outback, Aboriginals and the modern society which brought a European civilisation to their land.

Cinema +

[Offworld_Colony · 10/10 · 17 February 2020]

Blistering and hypnotic. About juxtaposition, communication, and 'noise'. As if viewed from the impassive non-judgemental view of a passing creature. Roeg is a master storyteller and artist and this film effortlessly tells its story with a mixture of obvious and subtle clues, and while immersing you in this walkabout, it manages to not sacrifice a single beautiful image, it's stunning. Even in a coming of age story, it manages to craft images together to allow the producing of a non-gratuitously sexualised, strong, young, female lead. It's not a film for everyone but it is absolutely one of the best films ever made.

Walkabout

[jboothmillard · 9/10 · 17 April 2008]

From Cannes Film Festival, Golden Palm nominated director Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now, The Witches) this is a must see classic. Basically a high school female student (The Railway Children's Jenny Agutter) and her younger brother (Luc Roeg, son of the director) (we never hear their names) are taken for a drive by their geologist father in the outback of Sydney, Australia. Without warning he starts shooting at them, and when they hide he sets the car on fire before killing himself. Now the sister and brother are stranded, and they are walking across this land hoping to find help. On their journey, they meet and are guided by an Aborigine youth (David Gulpilil), who is himself on "walkabout", a banishment ritual from his tribe. He helps them live off the seemingly arid land, e.g. how to get water, and hunting for food, and we mainly see the differences on culture between the girl and the youth. Eventually they do reach a place for help, and it skips to a while later, but she imagines what life could have been like if she, her brother and the youth were still in the outback, naked playing in a deep pool. The landscapes in this film are extraordinary, and the creatures that inhabit it are good too. What is also good about this film is the interesting use of camera-work, in moments documentary style; and editing, tiny points where you see the screen turn into pages turning, flashing images (of a butcher) appear when the youth is killing an animal, and freeze frames. It was number 17 on Film 4's 50 Films To See Before You Die. Very good!

So near to being a masterpiece, and yet so far

[Spleen · 6/10 · 2 October 1999]

Neither before nor since have so many great images been wrung out of the Australian landscape. It's an unattractive landscape and there is not, I would have thought, a lot that a cameraman can do with it; but each image is not only striking, but striking in a unique way.

Not that the photography is faultless. Every so often Roeg seems to get carried away by his own craft, so we get pointless freeze-frames, distracting hand-held camera shake, and the like. And the SELECTION of images is often heavy-handed beyond belief. The shot of the aboriginal boy killing and dismembering the kangaroo is interleaved with shots of a Sydney butcher likewise cutting a kangaroo into bits - as if to indicate that blacks and whites share the common bond of cutting up animal carcasses. Well, duh. And this is far from being Roeg's most embarrassing conceit. The low point is probably the very end, where a narrator appears out of nowhere to tell us what a character is feeling when it could hardly have been more obvious - by reciting poetry.

Still, if you can shoulder Roeg's artiness there's a lovely story about an English teenaged girl and an aboriginal teenaged boy. The English girl's brother tags along for the ride. He acts a source of dialogue in what would otherwise be an almost wordless film - in other words, he's a complete waste of space. Somehow the film loses momentum during the second half, and it's clear that SOMETHING is draining away energy fast. My theory is it's the boy. Roeg must also be blamed from straying from the point but he wouldn't have done so had the boy not been there. It's a pity, because all along I had a retinal image of a knock-down brilliant movie. The actual film comes so very close to matching the retinal image. Unfortunately the few differences prove fatal: `Walkabout' is simply a beautiful piece of cinema with a good premise, an arresting beginning, and a conclusion that WOULD have been moving had it not been preceded by so much tedium.

Classic Coming-of-Age Drama Set in the Australian Outback

[l_rawjalaurence · 9/10 · 14 November 2014]

WALKABOUT is quite simply a stunning cinematic experience. Directed and photographed by Nicolas Roeg, it tells of an English schoolgirl (Jenny Agutter) and her brother (Lucien John) getting lost in the Australian outback, and encountering an Aborigine (David Gulpilil), who looks after them and ensures their survival. In an opening title-card Roeg tells us that a "walkabout" is an aboriginal ritual whereby young men leave their families and set out on their own to discover themselves as well as prove their masculinity. In this film all three adolescents are in a sense on "walkabout": while the Aborigine learns to hunt for himself as well as provide nourishment for the other two, the schoolgirl learns to divest herself of her Englishness, as well as her inhibitions, as she swims naked in a rock-pool. Her brother sets aside his worldly toys and learns how to gather leaves, as well as pick up some phrases in Aborigine language so as to be able to communicate successfully.

Roeg sets this coming-of-age story within the larger theme of the destruction of the natural landscape by humankind. The film opens on the streets of Sydney, choked with cars and box-like apartments; this contrasts starkly with the wide open expanses of the outback where the sun shines pitilessly all day, and both human beings and animals have to learn how to eke out an existence as best they can. This they achieve partly by cunning and partly by making use of natural resources; by civilized standards, they might seem primitive (for example, the Aborigine's wooden spear) but they are stunningly effective. Brought up in the genteel tradition of public (in American, private) schools, the girl and her brother find the Aborigine's behavior rather distasteful at times, but gradually they learn how to adopt his mores.

Yet the Aboriginal way of life, just like the life of the animals that people the outback, is under threat. This is emphasized through a series of violent juxtapositions and stop-frames, as white hunters come in their Land-Rovers armed with shotguns and kill anything that moves indiscriminately. They gut and skin the corpses, leaving the skeletons to rot in the burning sun, infested with maggots. Roeg makes a powerful point by juxtaposing such sequences with more mundane images of a butcher in a city shop cutting meat for customers, as if to remind us of where our weekly meat actually comes from. The film ends with a similar image as the schoolgirl, now unhappily married to a respectable white Australian, is shown cutting meat on a chopping-board while her husband prattles on about his latest promotion at work.

The film contains some stunning visual images: the sight of the Aborigine shadowed against the setting sun reminds us of his intimate connection to the land. An aerial pan of the rock-pools, showing the schoolgirl swimming naked (not without a certain amount of scopophilic desire on the director's part) shows how she has happily cast off the trappings of civilization and returned to nature. A long shot of the girl and her brother trying to climb a mountain reminds us of human insignificance in this vast and deserted landscape. And finally, at the end of the film, the three youngsters are shown happily bathing once again the rock pool, all of them naked, all enjoying themselves without a shred of racial or sexual prejudice. This image offers us a glimpse of what could be, if only we were to set aside our perception of (culturally constructed) differences.

Even after forty years, WALKABOUT communicates a powerful message to audiences about the importance of communal living as the source of social and moral harmony. A true classic.

Australian outback as art

[cwhaskell · 7/10 · 17 December 2010]

Technically speaking this film is great: Beautiful cinematography, excellent acting from the three main characters, and compelling editing. That is the easy part to talk about. Much more difficult for me, after literally just finishing the movie less than 5 minutes ago, is to quickly process and review the story. It is a quiet film (another way of saying moves at a deliberate pace) when they are in the wilderness, and moves at a much more frenetic page when they are around civilization. Any scene of killing an animal for food in the wilderness is interposed with a butcher slaughtering his food, most likely grown on a farm and not caught naturally. The whole movie is like this, comparing what was to what has become. There is a lot I do not understand after one viewing, but just like a modern painting or sculpture I feel that the point is not to understand everything, rather to be moved to some type of emotional response. In that it succeeds without a doubt. Rating 26/40

Beautiful

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 25 July 2013]

Two young children are stranded in the Australian outback and are forced to cope on their own. They meet an Aborigine on "walkabout": a ritualistic separation from his tribe.

Louis Nowra wrote, "I was stunned. The images of the Outback were of an almost hallucinogenic intensity. Instead of the desert and bush being infused with a dull monotony, everything seemed acute, shrill, and incandescent. The Outback was beautiful and haunting." I could not agree more -- National Geographic cannot make a film more rich and vibrant than this.

Roger Ebert asked rhetorically, "Is it a parable about noble savages and the crushed spirits of city dwellers? That's what the film's surface suggests, but I think it's about something deeper and more elusive: the mystery of communication." Is he on to something? I do not know... there is definitely a communication element -- its importance is debatable.

A beautiful image of a film but, like a poster, if you look behind nothing is there.

[Wilbur-10 · 7/10 · 3 March 2001]

Roeg's first solo film as director ( the earlier 'Performance' was co-directed with Donald Cammell ), shows off to good effect what he learnt as a cinematographer. His concentration on this aspect though, causes big cracks to appear in other areas of the film which ultimately are serious enough to undermine all the cinematic beauty and force 'Walkabout' into the category of grand failure.

Jenny Agutter plays a teenage schoolgirl who is left to fend for herself and her young brother when their father cracks up and kills himself after driving them out for a desert picnic. This allows for numerous striking images and wonderfully composed shots as the two urban, civilised, fair-skinned children walk through the beautiful savagery of the outback. We are treated to numerous close-ups of lizards which try and divert our attention from the dialogue which is minimal and often trite. The young boy ( played by Roeg's son ) seems to have ability but his role is severely hampered by sound problems which render many of his lines impossible to understand. Agutter's delivery is bland and her performance doesn't have the power to make her character work - her nude swim is by far her best scene which doesn't speak highly for the film as a whole. David Gulpilil takes all the acting plaudits as the Aborigine boy, but he isn't given enough support to function at a high level. In the second half of the film even the imagery starts to become laboured - particularly all the scenes of urban decay.

The basic premise of the Westernised brother and sister finding their civilised education useless in the wilderness, having to rely on the primitive savagery of the Aborigine to survive, should have been a solid storyline - but there is too much pretension and everything is overcomplicated and laden with unnecessary symbolism and double meanings. This results in the film becoming boring and dull to sit through - one for the cultural snobs to debate over and delight in it's paper thin glossy coat which conceals a very fragile effort that won't stand up to any deep probings.

Roeg's next film did manage to successfully fuse his talents into a fully-realised production and the results were excellent. 'Don't Look Now' proved to be the only shining star in a directorial career full of unfulfilled promise which, by the the mid-90's, was reduced to the occasional Made-for-TV movie.

seeing walkabout again after 35 years was amazing

[healnghanz · 10/10 · 16 January 2006]

what is life changing about this film is you get to experience the life of an aborigine in his natural environment. with no help from anything except the land itself and thousands of years of culture behind him, he hunts lizards and kangaroos with handmade spears straightened by his teeth. he drinks water right out of the dirt with a straw stuck in the mud. its amazing. and it changes you. you see as if for the first time, the power and the credibility of what the native aborigine represents. he doesn't need clothes, or money. he just needs to be a part of his world, which he is at total peace with. what could be more sane than that.

juxtaposed against a father taking his children out for a picnic in the bush who cracks up and commits suicide, leaving his children stranded. in their innocence they actually do pretty well for themselves, coming upon an oasis, but it dries up the next day. thats when the aborigine arrives.

the children see him as a life saver and even though they don't speak the same language, the little boy in his desperation points to his mouth and says glug glug glug and the aborigine laughs hysterically and goes back to the dried up oasis and starts sucking water out of the ground with a straw, then gives them a drink.

so begins the journey where the children learn the ways of the aborigine. but they are not aborigine. they are very Australian, at least the girl is. eventually the aborigine brings them closer and closer to civilization, which seems absolutely barbaric by comparison. the aborigine does not kill for sport, and he uses everything and takes nothing more than he needs. the Australians, kill for the enjoyment of killing. finally the aborigine sees a road and touches it with his foot, he sees a steer and tries to kill it but is almost run over by some white hunters, who kill just to leave the animals rot.

this vision of depravity so terribly affects the aborigine, so devastates him that he goes almost mad. he returns back to the hut that he brought the girl to, possibly out of his love for her, and he dances a dance of desire for her. the girl gets scared and starts to hide from him in the shack. you get the real sense of houses containing shadows that cut people off from the direct experience of one another that they had when they were out in the wilderness under the stars.

he dances and dances, but she ignores him, rebuffs his gentle advances. she falls asleep and the next day the boy finds that the aborigine is not moving. he is up in a tree, apparently dead.

the girl and boy make their way back to civilization, which is horrifying. the movie abruptly ends with the girl older now thinking back to the time she had in the wilderness.

i am not giving this movie justice. just suffice to say it breaks your heart. you feel the loss of the aborigine. the impact is tremendous because this is real. he lost so much. yet the world doesn't seem to care. why in gods name cant we care about what we have done to the people who have given us the gift of showing us how to live in harmony with nature. happy. without doubt. full of joy. we cannot improve on this. man living in harmony with nature is perfection. what can we say about our own civilization, filled with suffering and people preying upon each other. our world is hell compared with what the aborigine has in his hands, or had. we made sure that our misery became his misery.

as the earth is used up this movie is more and more relevant. but we have become so crippled we cant even cry for what has gone, never to return. what a loss! Why don't we see it? the innocence is gone. we killed it. we killed it. we killed it.

Interesting Social Commentary - ***Spoilers***

[gbheron · 7/10 · 7 October 2001]

"Walkabout" is, on the surface, a survival move. Two kids, one a teenage girl and her school-age brother, are taken deep into the Outback by their father, presumably for a picnic. Tragically, he is over the deep-end psychologically, and intends to kill them. His plan goes afoul, they escape, and instead he kills himself after torching the car, stranding his kids in the desert. They are left to their own, limited skills as the try to make it back to civilization. They don't fare too well and are soon on their last legs when an adolescent aborigine, on his rite-of-manhood walkabout (living off the land by oneself for months), finds them. The two kids accompany him on his walkabout, hoping to get back to civilization.

But this is more than just a story; it is a metaphor for the clash between nature and industry, between primitive society and Western. This is 1971 so guess who the bad guys are. And symbols are everywhere in every scene. Sometimes the director stops the plot and films a symbol; an insect, lizard whatever. Psychosocial politics aside this is a very well made movie on every level. It's a movie to view with friends, and then talk about. Maybe see it again. I recommend it.

will appeal to a certain audience, not everyone will enjoy this...

[LiveLoveLead · 5/10 · 9 July 2014]

This movie is difficult to rate. First you have to take into consideration it is from the 70's and looks it. Second, although it is in English, it is an Austrailian/UK film which can be very different from American film. The Good: beautiful scenery, cerebral context, Jenny Agutter was pretty & a decent actress as well as David Gulpilil, as the aboriginal boy; interesting adventure of kids lost in the Outback. The Bad: for those that don't like cerebral films, it moves slowly, taking in scenery and nature, often with long moments of silence or just musical score and the musical score leaves much to be desired; also, there are some scenes in the beginning and end that you have to ponder and aren't spelled out for you (I basically understood, but many reviewers were confused); The Ugly: the movie often shows the killing & gutting of animals; it also splices in flashes of modern civilization, for example the aboriginal boy hacking up an animal he just caught, with flashes of a butcher chopping up meats (although I think I understand why the director did this, I felt that it was intrusive & interrupted the flow); also, parents beware, there is a long nude scene of the girl swimming (Jenny, was playing a 16 years old in the film, but the actress was 18 years old), although it is tasteful, she is shown in full frontal nudity and is also shown naked a few other times in the film (Trivia: the actress was embarrassed during the nude swimming, so most of the crew had to leave while filming that scene, but later they all went skinny dipping together.) So, although it has some artistic quality, I didn't love it (or hate it.) I probably wouldn't recommend this film, because it will only appeal to a certain group of movie watchers...a 5/10 (middle of the road) in My Humble Opinion! 2014