A film of mesmerising power
Walkabout
Restored original cut
Directed by Nicholas Roeg
Starring David Gulpilil, Jenny Agutter, Lucien John
Screening at Trak, Toorak, in Melbourne and Chauvel, Paddington, in Sydney this month. Then at Electric Shadows, Canberra; Cinema Paradiso, Northbridge, in Perth; and Palace Eastend in Adelaide.
Review by Brendan Doyle
There are few films that powerfully capture something of what it means to live on this continent as uninitiated newcomers. Walkabout is such a film.
The film was first released in 1971, and I remember being very impressed by it then. This director's original cut, in a beautifully restored 35mm version which contains two scenes censored from the earlier one, confirms Walkabout as an important film about the timeless, universal theme of our place in the natural and cultural landscape.
Why is Walkabout still mesmerising? First, because it is cinematic storytelling at its best — uncluttered, unpretentious, but exploiting all the magic of the medium.
A teenage girl and her young brother are picked up from their Sydney private school, where they learn elocution and manners, by their father and driven into the outback in the family Volkswagen. Miles from anywhere, he tells them to get out and starts shooting at them before setting fire to the car and committing suicide.
Still in school uniform, the two head off into the desert, suddenly thrown into a struggle for survival. Close to utter exhaustion, they meet an Aboriginal boy who is on his walkabout initiation.
The white kids are clearly the aliens in this environment and desperately try to communicate with the black boy, who speaks no English. In a funny moment, of which there are many, the girl very patiently explains to him "Thisa isa Australiaa".
The Aboriginal boy effortlessly finds food and water for them and takes them to cool gorges in an apparently desolate landscape. Eventually he leads them to "civilisation", but the film enigmatically suggests that it is at a terrible cost to him.
There are scenes of intense, haunting beauty, such as when the three swim naked in a rocky gorge. Roeg, a cinematographer before he was a director, creates unforgettable images of the outback.
David Gulpilil brings humour and dignity to the role of the Aboriginal boy. Jenny Agutter as the teenage girl on the edge of womanhood controls the role beautifully, and Lucien John as her pesky little brother is a delight.
This is inspired film-making that has a lot to say about cultural invasion and life on this continent stripped of its useless trappings. It lingers in the memory.