**** (out of ****)
Starring Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, and David Gumpilil.
Directed & photographed by Nicolas Roeg, written for the screen by Edward Bond, from the novel by James Vance Marshall.
1971 PG
It’s tempting to interpret “Walkabout” as a simple statement that living in the woods is better than living in a city, but I doubt such a statement is accurate. Rarely is there a movie in which the day-to-day existence of wild animals is so unfriendly and, well, alien. In the course of “Walkabout” we meet an aborigine boy who must hunt, every single day, to stay alive, and we don’t just see him say “I’m going to hunt” and then come back with fresh-cooked ribeye, we see the spear taking out the adorable kangaroo, we see him clubbing it to death, we see him ripping its furry legs off and sticking them on the fire. That’s life. Animals eat other animals. But I for one am happier when someone else takes care of the gory stuff and I just get the ribeye.
“Walkabout” is a juxtaposition of “civilization” and “wilderness,” told in the purely cinematic terms of images and expressions, not words. This is life in one place, and this is life in another, and while the aborigine clubs the kangaroo director Nicolas Roeg also shows us the civilized butcher separating the chunks of meat. When the two city children laugh in the tree the family of aborigines have a similar experience in what’s left of a defunct automobile. The eyes of the aborigine boy cannot stop being drawn to the tiny skirt of the city girl, but the same is true of the three men playing cards next to the woman whose garters are barely, deliciously visible. “Walkabout’s” strength is that it resists passing judgment on these comparisons and merely shows them.
What connects these images is the journey of a brother and sister (Lucien John and Jenny Agutter) lost in the outback. An aborigine boy on his walkabout (David Gumpilil) comes to their aid and the three of them do the best they can to communicate, which isn’t much. There’s a muted attraction between the aborigine and the girl, both of whom seem to be trying on their developing sexuality like a new set of clothes, and the little boy begins to look up to him because of his survival skills. What happens to them I will not reveal, only to say that their adventure takes them more into the symbolism of cultural differences, rather than just a string of dangerous incidents. Sometimes I wondered if the narrative had strayed into a dream, or a fantasy sequence. As for style, it’s safe to say that Nicolas Roeg is Terence Malick with an Austrailian accent. As his own cinematographer, he fills his canvas with lush, deadly landscapes, oppressive sunrises, and prefers, over close-ups, long-shots of isolated, insignificant humans amidst the wilderness. “Walkabout” is not a relentless Hollywood movie in which the lost children exchange clever quips every couple of feet. They’re too bewildered, both by the desolation around them, and by how ill-equipped they are too face it. This is one of the most thought-provoking films of 1971, and deserves to be mentioned alongside “A Clockwork Orange” and “The French Connection.”
P.S. Initial reviews of “Walkabout” seem to believe that it might be appropriate for children, despite its brief spurts of violence and nudity. Thirty-one years later I can’t imagine most adult moviegoers, let alone children, having the patience for “Walkabout’s” deliberate, elegant pacing, which is a shame.
Finished April 18, 2002.
Copyright 2002 Friday & Saturday Night