WalkaboutCivilization is defined by how society functions relative to nature. There are societies which work in tandem with the natural world, and there are others which are removed from the wilderness almost entirely. The people of these civilizations are raised to operate within the defined parameters of their culture. For some, this means foraging for survival in the Outback of Australia; for others, it is attending school, working jobs in cities, and eating food from cans. Invariably, when the members of one society find themselves displaced in another, there is fear and desperation, but also the necessary call to adapt, because the alternative is death.
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Nicholas Roeg's Walkabout is the story of an unnamed teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her younger brother (Luc Roeg) who become stranded in the wilds of the Australian wilderness, following a suicidal breakdown by their father (John Meillon). Although he has brought them to the wild ostensibly for a picnic, they are not fully equipped to make their way either back to civilization or even to keep themselves alive in the altogether hostile environment. Their allegiance to the comforts of modern living are reflected in their attachments to toys and their radio, not to mention their lack of survival skills. This is not to say that they are spoiled from city life, but that they are not going to survive without guidance. When their struggle seems at its most desperate, and heat exhaustion and dehydration threaten to claim their lives, they are approached by an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) on his own "walkabout", who provides for the two of them, even though they do not share a language. It is the Aboriginal boy who does the hunting, cooking, and navigates the path through the bush, and the younger boy even begins to accompany the older native on hunts, even if he is too young to effectively wield a boomerang. The trio play and spend their time together joyously; and as they play, it becomes clear that the older boy begins to develop feelings for the girl, who either fails to identify this or chooses to avoid it, while she eagerly hopes for the chance to return to the world from whence she came.
Walkabout is primarily a visual film, telling its true story more through the metaphor of sound and image less than strictly through dialogue. The feel of the world is conveyed through montage and other stylistic flourishes, such as Nicholas Roeg's trademark disjointed editing. The significance of this in Walkabout is that it keeps with the concept in Aboriginal spirituality known as "dreamtime", which considers the interconnectedness of life in the world. For example there is a scene where the older boy spears and butchers a kangaroo for meat, only to be intercut with shots of an unnamed butcher in a city chopping ribs with a cleaver. This scene speaks to the similarities of humanity's predatory will to survive--brutal, but universal. Another scene occurs when the trio have begun to climb a tree, playing and joking around. Both the girl and the older boy are mature, and at an age where feelings of sexuality would be natural. As they climb, the branches of the tree resemble the girl's legs, and even one division has a distinctly vaginal appearance. This scene is juxtaposed with an Aboriginal tribe discovering the wreckage of the father and his car, and the tribe is virtually naked, and shots periodically show their exposed breasts and buttocks. All of these images are stirred together into a montage which intimates the thoughts of budding sexuality and unfamiliar desire in the teenagers without expressly saying so. These feelings return in a jarring scene where the older boy is hunting real quarry and the girl is swimming in a lake beneath the waters, looking like something from a Pre-Raphaelite painting. It is a sharp contrast between the beautiful and the bloody, and is meditative about both of these qualities inherent in nature.
Other subtle visual cues in Walkabout speak to the relation between the "city" and the "wild", and the relation humanity has with both. There are several shots which imply that the difference between the two civilizations is superficial or even ironic; the children swim in a pool in close proximity to the ocean at their home apartment, and even the father's Volkswagen Beetle looks like one of the many insects which crawl around all over everything in the outback. There are also numerous shots of walls and rocky outcroppings, be they made of brick or worn-away mountainsides. These barriers are a metaphor for the barriers we erect to protect us and hide away from the world outside, a world we do not understand and are even scared of exploring. Following her father's violent act of destruction, the girl lies to the younger boy and tries to keep him positive so that they may survive until they are rescued. But as the story progresses, it is clear that she is the more scared one in this strange and unfamiliar world, distancing herself from the older boy's advances, and perking up at the first sign of her civilization, even if it is an abandoned shack in the wild. The opening of Walkabout begins with a description of what a "walkabout" is: a journey of discovery for someone on the threshold of adulthood, for them to discover how they must survive in their world. It is the time for learning how to reconcile society and nature in harmony, and to gain an awareness of one's place in both. Whether that lesson was learned by the girl--evidenced by her wistfulness in the denouement--is uncertain, but it also forces one to evaluate how to live one's life, and that lesson must leave its mark.
Recommended for: Fans of a bold and poetic story of survival and understanding in the outback of Australia. It is a tale of adolescence and society, and also of nature, both beautiful and brutal.
Walkabout is primarily a visual film, telling its true story more through the metaphor of sound and image less than strictly through dialogue. The feel of the world is conveyed through montage and other stylistic flourishes, such as Nicholas Roeg's trademark disjointed editing. The significance of this in Walkabout is that it keeps with the concept in Aboriginal spirituality known as "dreamtime", which considers the interconnectedness of life in the world. For example there is a scene where the older boy spears and butchers a kangaroo for meat, only to be intercut with shots of an unnamed butcher in a city chopping ribs with a cleaver. This scene speaks to the similarities of humanity's predatory will to survive--brutal, but universal. Another scene occurs when the trio have begun to climb a tree, playing and joking around. Both the girl and the older boy are mature, and at an age where feelings of sexuality would be natural. As they climb, the branches of the tree resemble the girl's legs, and even one division has a distinctly vaginal appearance. This scene is juxtaposed with an Aboriginal tribe discovering the wreckage of the father and his car, and the tribe is virtually naked, and shots periodically show their exposed breasts and buttocks. All of these images are stirred together into a montage which intimates the thoughts of budding sexuality and unfamiliar desire in the teenagers without expressly saying so. These feelings return in a jarring scene where the older boy is hunting real quarry and the girl is swimming in a lake beneath the waters, looking like something from a Pre-Raphaelite painting. It is a sharp contrast between the beautiful and the bloody, and is meditative about both of these qualities inherent in nature.
Other subtle visual cues in Walkabout speak to the relation between the "city" and the "wild", and the relation humanity has with both. There are several shots which imply that the difference between the two civilizations is superficial or even ironic; the children swim in a pool in close proximity to the ocean at their home apartment, and even the father's Volkswagen Beetle looks like one of the many insects which crawl around all over everything in the outback. There are also numerous shots of walls and rocky outcroppings, be they made of brick or worn-away mountainsides. These barriers are a metaphor for the barriers we erect to protect us and hide away from the world outside, a world we do not understand and are even scared of exploring. Following her father's violent act of destruction, the girl lies to the younger boy and tries to keep him positive so that they may survive until they are rescued. But as the story progresses, it is clear that she is the more scared one in this strange and unfamiliar world, distancing herself from the older boy's advances, and perking up at the first sign of her civilization, even if it is an abandoned shack in the wild. The opening of Walkabout begins with a description of what a "walkabout" is: a journey of discovery for someone on the threshold of adulthood, for them to discover how they must survive in their world. It is the time for learning how to reconcile society and nature in harmony, and to gain an awareness of one's place in both. Whether that lesson was learned by the girl--evidenced by her wistfulness in the denouement--is uncertain, but it also forces one to evaluate how to live one's life, and that lesson must leave its mark.
Recommended for: Fans of a bold and poetic story of survival and understanding in the outback of Australia. It is a tale of adolescence and society, and also of nature, both beautiful and brutal.