TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

frankwiener Although this film is often visually beautiful, it also depicts a very bleak world in which the thin mask of "civilization" fails to disguise our most fundamental roots in the raw, natural world that exists beyond the skyscrapers and modern conveniences of urban life. It is a world filled with devouring insects, menacing reptiles, foreboding skeletons, and, perhaps worst of all, the mental fragility of humans that can so easily create horrific outcomes.Aside from its broader, more universal theme, the film also reveals the stark contrast between the cities of Australia, where the overwhelming majority of people live, and the vast, enormous wilderness that covers most of that magnificent nation and continent.This is a very important film that has managed to overcome its undeniable 1970's cultural attributes. To me those aspects of the film's era are superficial in comparison to its profound message concerning our very existence as a species that happens to control this planet, a tiny speck within an endless universe that is far beyond our control.The names of the three main characters are never revealed, as if they have no personal identity as individuals. While their different races and ethnocultural backgrounds are essential on one level, the specific details of their individual lives are insignificant on another, higher level. They are human beings. Beyond that, they are just another species, granted a very influential species within its limited realm, in a universe that is much more powerful and that renders all of the particular aspects of their lives, including their names, meaningless.I am surprised that some other reviewers had problems with Jennie Agutter's nude scenes as they include no sexual activity whatsoever. In my view, the appearance of a beautiful young woman in her natural state is deliberately used to offset all of the ugly aspects of the world that exist around her and that threatened her physical loveliness from every direction. Even her own father, of all people, came very close to eliminating her forever. For me, her natural beauty serves as a triumph over the hideousness, even horror, that prevails around us and that threatens us every day. She is beautiful. The scenes are exhilarating as art. Regardless of how old her character is supposed to be, she looks like a fully grown woman to me.I don't know if animals were actually killed as a result of the production only because the standard US disclaimer from an American animal welfare organization does not appear among the final credits. If animals were killed only for the making of a movie, I would be very disappointed, especially since the killing would have been completely unnecessary.In spite of the sometimes disturbing nature of our world, the three young people at the center of the film do manage to achieve, under very difficult circumstances, an idyllic paradise, even if it is of very brief duration. As the film reminds its viewers again and again, our individual lives in the general scheme are a mere flash in time, whether we choose to accept this reality or not.The final quote from A.E. Housman's nostalgic poem "A Shropshire Lad" illuminates the situation best: "That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went, And cannot come again." Tragically, the central characters cannot return to those fleeting moments of heavenly bliss that they shared in the wilderness. In this imperfect world, we must seize perfection as it occurs because we may never live to experience it again.

SnoopyStyle A schoolgirl (Jenny Agutter), her little brother (Luc Roeg) and their father (John Meillon) from Sydney drive out into the Australian outback for a picnic. The father is disturbed and starts shooting at his kids. He sets the car on fire and kills himself. They walk off into the wilderness. With dwindling supplies, they find a watering hole and a fruit tree. When even that has gone, an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) encounters them.This is visually arresting. It's about the life in the desert more than any rolling sand dunes. The story is about Jenny Agutter's character. This is her walkabout. It's her coming of age with her sexuality. It's also her protective instincts with her brother. The movie starts with her protecting her brother from her father and her father's death. It also lays out the differing cultures. The intercutting between various sequences delivers its powerful message. It's a truly memorable movie.

l_rawjalaurence 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.

Red-Barracuda After attempting to kill them and then subsequently committing suicide himself, a man leaves his two children stranded in the middle of the Australian outback. A chance meeting with an Aboriginal boy who is out on his walkabout initiation offers a chance of survival for these kids who are completely out of their depth in such an unforgiving environment.Walkabout was directed by famed cinematic innovator Nicolas Roeg. Along with films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock and Wake in Fright, it formed part of the cinematic movement that has since been described as the Australian New Wave. These were a collection of films made in Australia that explored aspects of the country that had hitherto not been dealt with cinematically. Walkabout is notable in several ways, both stylistically and thematically. It contrasts western urban civilisation with the primitive indigenous culture. The clash is most obvious between the city children and the Aboriginal boy. But despite the fact that the latter is unsubtitled the whole time and whose actions aren't always clearly understood, it's the city culture that is presented as insane. For instance, the opening voice exercises that the girl school work on seem quite bizarre, while several of the white characters we meet along the way act in ways that are at best strange and at others coldly callous. The film often contrasts the beauty of the natural world with the functional human habitations and the rotting junk they leave behind. The children connect to the Aborigine differently too, the young boy is able to communicate and relate to him in an instinctive way that the older girl cannot as she has already been too processed by her culture to the extent that she finds it much harder to connect. The implication is that the civilising effect takes us away from something pure, some kind of innocence the youngster has not as yet lost.As it is, the girl (Jenny Agutter) and the Aborigine boy (David Gulpilil) become a source of sexual fascination for one and other. But while there is palpable sexual tension, theirs is a doomed romantic attraction. The boy never understands that what the girl really seeks is to return to her home. The language barrier prevents communication beyond the basic but the boy clearly thinks his encounter with these white children must be simply part of his walkabout initiation; another part of becoming a man. Sadly, this leads him to engage in a tribal mating dance thinking it is the logical thing to do, which unsurprisingly freaks the girl out. The result is his suicide because he thinks he has failed the ultimate test, the tragic irony of course is that he has inadvertently carried out a great deed worthy of any man in saving these children from certain death. He seems oblivious to this just as he is unaware what the children really seek, illustrated brilliantly in the scene where he encounters a white girl near a settlement, the children never see her nor the white community, never knowing how close they are to what they seek.Walkabout is an adventure-drama that is very minimalist in most ways. It has nameless characters, a basic narrative and sparse dialogue. The scene where the father tries to kill his children is partly so effective because there has been absolutely no build up to it. The small cast all do excellent work but ultimately its director Roeg's film. This one-time cinematographer ensures that this is a movie that is visually incredible at all times. The Australian outback is the right shape to fit a widescreen frame beautifully and Roeg makes the most of this when he captures the landscape, plant and animal life in consistently interesting ways. His famed bold editing techniques are evident too with some juxtapositions of images that sometimes highlight themes and other times disturb. He also uses freeze frames to add to the beauty but which also adds to the strangeness. It's also one of those films with abundant nudity that never feels exploitative in any way but natural and important to the overall whole. In the final analysis, this is one of the most beautiful looking films you are likely to see and for that alone it's worth watching. It's one of those films that just gets better and better every time I see it.