Directed by Nicolas Roeg
Starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, David Gulpili and John Meillon
I first heard about this movie way back in 1997 on "Siskel & Ebert" when the director's cut was initially released on home video. The concept certainly piqued my interest enough to keep watching - survival stories are almost always interesting if nothing else, and this one looked like it belonged in a class of its own. The movie took on a certain mythic status in my brain as I read reviews of the film, first in the Ebert companion and later as part of the "Great Movies" subsection of his website. Years later, I discovered some of the scenes that the film's leading lady Jenny Agutter performs and...wow! Ms. Agutter is absolutely gorgeous, as anyone who has seen Equus or An American Werewolf in London will testify, but she never looked better than she did here.
I'm pleased to announce that Walkabout is a movie that lived up to the hype. The journey that this movie took to gaining a wide audience is almost as epic as the story itself; initially premiering at the 1971 Cannes film festival, it was then subsequently forgotten about for a long time. Eventually, a grassroots campaign of people who saw it on its initial showings were enough to get a video release. It was at this point that the film was re-appraised by film critics and stamped as the classic that it is known as today. What is it with Walkabout that makes it so special? Let's dive in to the specifics.
The film is unconventional to put it lightly, very reminiscent of a Stanley Kubrick movie at times with its jarring editing and a story structure that jumps around from peak to valley at the drop of a hat. Put simply enough, it is the story of life and death that wastes no time getting going. None of the characters in the film are named; there is simply a teenage girl (Agutter), her younger brother (Luc Roeg - director Nicolas Roeg's own son, no less), and their father (John Meillon). The father takes his children deep into the Australian wilderness for a picnic but begins firing a gun at them. The kids manage to escape, and the father kills himself, leaving the girl and the boy alone to fend for themselves. The movie gives no concrete reason for the father doing this; an early scene at their residence suggests that the father may have some incestuous designs on his daughter, but beyond that his motivations are a mystery.
The early stages of the story are fairly predictable, but engaging nonetheless as the siblings begin traversing the desert. They have only a radio and a few items of food from their picnic as supplies, and it doesn't take long for their journey to turn into despair. It is at this early breaking point when they are found by an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpili) on his Walkabout - a solo adventure that members of his tribe must take to enter into manhood. After solving the problem about how to draw water from a dried-up pond, the boy and the girl tag along with the Aborigine on his trek.
A major point in Walkabout is communication. In the scene where the Aboriginal boy refills their water supply, it is the younger brother who manages to break through the barrier with body language. This is a theme that continues from this point forward, with the girl seeming to make no effort past cosmetics of trying to talk to the Aboriginal boy. She is practical, holding on to her city life aesthetics and customs. Her brother is able to let go and adapt to the situation far easier. He learns some of the Aboriginal words and becomes a close friend of their strange new companion, a development that comes across remarkably well considering a key choice that Nicolas Roeg makes here. There are no subtitles for the Aboriginal boy's speech - we the viewer are just as perplexed as the kids trying to make it back to civilization.
The best movies demand that you watch closely and reward the viewer for paying attention. Walkabout has several moments and scenes that serve as prime examples. Seemingly out of nowhere, the Aboriginal boy is seen walking past a previously unknown woman. It is gradually revealed that this woman runs a nearby plantation, but the Aboriginal boy returns to his companions and does not take them there. Did he deliberately hide this? Has he met this woman before? Nothing is explained, less is more. There is also great juxtaposition as it becomes clear that the Aboriginal boy is taking notice of the girl's beauty, interspersed with scenes of a nearby weather research team's male crew trying to sneak glimpses at the comely female scientist. It's a cultural universal. There is a similar juxtaposition as the girl swims in a billabong, cutting in and out of shots of the Aboriginal boy hunting wild animals. This no doubt represents the provider role that the Aboriginal boy is taking with the girl, which leads up to the climactic courtship dance scene that marks the film's second turning point.
No doubt, this was a difficult project from a film-making perspective. Long shoots during the daytime in one of the more uninhabitable regions of the world were the norm on this film. Great demands were put on the cast, with Agutter, the younger Roeg, and David Gulpili being virtually the only actors we see for 90% of the running time. But the elder Roeg has an improvisational style as a director that served the production well; they ran across many things during filming that suited the themes they were exploring, especially the countless examples of the animals whose only purpose of existence was existence.
I'm sure that a common theory as to what the film is trying to say involves the rustic living that the surviving girl and boy are forced to take on as a means of staying alive...
...is superior to the civilized life that they left behind and are now attempting to get back to. Me...I'm not so sure. In a way, I think this film is kind of an anti-Gran Torino. Where that movie was about characters who come to realize that they are much more alike than they think under the surface differences, Walkabout is more about people who are unable to find those commonalities. It plays out mainly in the film's closing moments, which are tragic and sad, yes, but also completely appropriate. This isn't a movie that is going to leave you with the overwhelming urge to watch it again immediately, but it will stick with you long after the final frame.
Rating time: Wait for it...**** out of ****. Walkabout is a must-watch that ignites the analytical part of your brain, for reasons that have nothing to do with Jenny Agutter's nude scenes. Although those certainly don't hurt.
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