walkabout ( film )
salwolke, scott, nicolas roeg: film by film, jefferson, 1993 .
the film was aboriginal actor david gulpilil' s first role in a feature film .
[ video ]
walkabout
is a poetic film that incorporates a collective subconscious of humanist values .
we revisit the film that renewed community interest in the stolen generations. explore the story of this vital film .
lecture: film vs. video, film structure, video structure, codecs, containers, sample rates, transcoding
walkabout was one of the twenty five official selections for the 1971 24th cannes film festival, as an entry for the united kingdom .
a b fiona harma (2001). “walkabout”. the oz film database. murdoch university. retrieved 2008 - 02 - 18 .
if my player holds out and i can move straight on to walkabout 3d .
i saw' walkabout' last night - a remarkable and enlightening film to an old european. your critical review added to my appreciation of this masterpiece
boyle, a. ,
two images of the aboriginal: walkabout, the novel and film ,
in literature / film quarterly (salisbury, maryland), vol. 7, no. 1, 1979 .
the oxford australian film discreetly proposes it did
not fare well commercially
, a kind way of saying the film was a flop .
for the most part, walkabout is an involving, occasionally hypnotic, motion picture .
“walkabout by nicolas roeg”. the criterion collection. retrieved 2008 - 02 - 17 .
my earlier criterion dvd of walkabout plays just fine on my region 2 dvd recorder .
when walkabout was released in 1971, roger ebert awarded the film four stars but sheepishly discouraged reading too much into the film' s overwhelming symbolism. other critics have generally been more willing to engage the film on its own terms. writing in the san francisco chronicle, critic edward guthmann (in 1997) wrote that walkabout is a
a film that' s part anthem to the primitive world and part rebuke to the dull, overinsulated selfishness of contemporary man .
ozon' s provocative film can do much to improve attitudes towards lgbti people .
feardotcom (2002) looks and sounds like a remake of a japanese horror film that never was. this 40 million dollar horror film was r ...
a film tie - in edition was published by penguin in 1971. the original novel and the film tie - in have been through a number of editions .
... an independent film scholar, [ muir ] explains film studies concepts in a language that is reader - friendly and engaging ...
(
for many years now, one legendary film has appeared on every list of fine movies that are missing from distribution and home video. that film is nicolas roeg’s walkabout, the 1971 drama about a fourteen - year - old girl and her little brother, who are…
walkabout has a good script by edward bond, and is directed and stunningly photographed by nicolas roeg .
while mainly manufactured in australia, the film was entered into cannes as the official british entry, and is usually considered a british film, though the finance is american. because it' s a rare thing - an interesting film made in australia in 1970 - many are willing to claim it as at least a part - australian film .
roeg' s vision of the film and his method of working has remained consistent .
the erroneous statement which suggests that walkabout is only done by boys undergoing initiation, reflects the impossibility of white culture being able to really understand aboriginal culture. an illustrated encyclopedia of aboriginal life describes walkabout as being :
i had to see this for film history and really liked the film however, i really didn' t understand the last quarter of the film. your explanation was eye - opening and very pleasant to read (comparing to wikipedia). thank you so much for taking the time to write it out, i have a whole new respect for this film! - inola
mcgregor, craig ,
walkabout: beautiful but fake? ,
in new york times, 18 july 1971 .
izod j. ,
walkabout: wasted journey ,
in sight and sound (london), spring 1980 .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing walkabout (1971) near you .
a b ebert, roger. “walkabout by nicolas roeg”. the criterion collection. retrieved 2008 - 02 - 17 .
name =' fellwanderer' ] my earlier criterion dvd of walkabout plays just fine on my region 2 dvd recorder .
walkabout fared poorly at the box office in australia. critics debated whether it could be considered an australian film, and whether it was an embrace or a reaction to the country’s cultural and natural context. [ 2 ]
box office: the film did not do well in its initial run in australia or north america .
roeg had been thinking about the film for several years before he got the chance to make it .
if you seek out another post of mine, i did a detailed track breakdown of the film .
in - class group shoot to familiarize students with digital video cameras. cinema department rules & regulations. introduction to motion picture cameras. film cameras vs. digital cameras. differences between working in film & video .
my earlier criterion dvd of walkabout plays just fine on my region 2 dvd recorder. though i think it is almost immoral, i can understand the logic for making dvds region locked when film releases occur in the us long before the rest of the world but why on earth when releasing a forty year old film in blu - ray ?
still from walkabout, starring luc roeg, jenny agutter and david gulpilil: a work of striking atmospheric contrasts. photograph: pr
you should read louis nowra' s book on walkabout if you haven' t already. it offers invaluable insight into it .
but it should be noted that up to this time no australian feature film had captured with such imagination or beauty aboriginal dance, as displayed by gulpilil in his courtship dance. whatever else might be said about it, the film expanded the imagination and understanding of those who would take part in the australian feature film revival .
playwright, scriptwriter and novelist louis nowra wrote an eighty page study of the film for currency press in 2003 .
the criterion collection dvd release of the film is billed as the “original, unedited director’s cut”. [ 3 ]
i opt for criterion' s walkabout and the red shoes too, but i bought them when there was virtually nothing out on region 2. blu - ray walkabout is tempting me to upgrade to blu - ray, but i am trying to resisting buying blu - ray player until i need to replace my dvd player. i would only re - buy handful of my dvd so it is not economical to upgrade just for one film. if my player holds out and i can move straight on to walkabout 3d .
just watched walkabout and wanted to read some other points of view on the symbolism in the film. very grateful that i found john' s blog and some very thoughtful, considered opinions from others. will be heading back here again. cheers .
like any memorable work of art, walkabout manages to convey certain elusive insights that, upon reflection, are so obvious they seem revelatory .
before director nicolas roeg gave the world one of the finest and most disturbing horror films ever made, don' t look now, in 1973, he crafted an equally brilliant but very different film set in the australian outback, 1971' s walkabout .
one of the best writers analyzing contemporary genre film and television .
- (theofantastique, 11 / 13 )
the poem read at the end of the film is poem 40 from a. e. housman’s a shropshire lad .
to wit, walkabout is a film consisting of very little dialogue, and the shooting script was reportedly just fourteen pages long. and yet there isn' t a moment of
emptiness
to be found anywhere in walkabout. rather, through the repeating motif of cross - cuts, director roeg encourages audiences to consider a story about innocence, and perhaps more specifically, the death of innocence .
met with mixed reviews and dismal box office returns in australia, walkabout has since established itself as a significant film in the cinematic canon; it boasts a 93% rating on rotten tomatoes and was classified as a “great movie” by roger ebert in 1997. this experimental adaptation of james vance marshall’s book the children (since retitled walkabout) uses its simplistic story – a young boy and teenage girl stranded in the outback befriend an aboriginal boy on walkabout – to frame a coming of age story complicated by questions of race, civilisation and sexuality .
anyone going to see walkabout at the bfi? it is being screened several times in march. hoping to be there myself - of course !
i opt for criterion' s walkabout and the red shoes too, but i bought them when there was virtually nothing out on region 2 .
the distinctive musician and composer discusses his instinctive approach to composition and the value of a total immersion into a film’s world .
neither film won. the grand prix that year was another uk entry, joseph losey' s the go - between .
when re - issued in 1998 in australia, the film managed only a token a $ 68, 720 in business, equivalent to a $ 95, 507 in 2009 a $, according to the film victoria report on australian box office .
the sequence, effective within itself, cannot carry the burden of the whole film, though by default it must. the film runs along for most of its length on the simple continued addition of contrasts and this sudden multiplication of meanings and levels only emphasizes the poverty of what precedes and follows rather than raising the film as a whole to a more majestic complexity .
a truly great film, and walkabout is a truly great film, is not only great in its totality but also has a profound effect on its viewers in two ways (imo): i) every viewing can bring something new or a different twist to a scene; ii) every viewer is made to think and interpret it according to their own philosophy and understanding of the world .
macnab, geoffrey ,
going walkabout ,
in sight & sound (london), vol. 9, no. 3, march 1999 .
some years ago, i screened nicolas roeg’s 1973 film don’t look now for a group of international students who were learning english. rarely have i seen an audience more engaged by what they were watching. we discussed the film afterward, and i w…
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
however, we must accept that film is a construction, and not a document of place. if a statement is presented as fact though, it should be correct. the desire for verisimilitude cannot be satisfied here, in this complex and fantastic film .
the film was a box office flop in australia, but did respectable business internationally, and has had a good ancillary life .
the final lines in the film are from a poem by a. e. housman, a shropshire lad, stanza 40 :
film critic edward guthmann also notes the strong use of exotic natural images, calling them a “chorus of lizards”. [ 6 ]
of their girlfriends doesn' t it? but no the only closest i got was seeing the film' four feathers.'
parsons, d. ,
lost highway, walkabout ,
in cinefantastique (forest park), vol. 28, no. 12, 1997 .
edward guthmann (january 3, 1997). “intriguing 'walkabout’ in the past”. urltoken. san francisco chronicle. retrieved 2008 - 02 - 18 .
the film put david gulpilil, one of this country' s finest indigenous actors, on the map. it premiered at the cannes film festival but performed poorly at the local box office and drew a mixed response from critics. among the topics debated by reviewers was whether it was actually australian. walkabout was financed with american money, adapted from an english novel by an english director and stars mostly english actors .
one of the horror genre' s
most widely read critics
( rue morgue # 68) ,
an accomplished film journalist
( comic buyer' s guide # 1535), and the award - winning author of horror films of the 1980s (2007), the rock and roll film encyclopedia (2007) and horror films of the 1970s (2002), john kenneth muir, presents his blog on film, television and nostalgia, named one of the top 100 film studies blog on the net .
after the film was restored, it was given a new theatrical life in australia, europe and the united states, and received a number of new reviews - for example, the film only arrived in san francisco in 1997, and received a review here .
based loosely on a 1959 adventure novel by james vance marshall, walkabout amply displays the director' s unfettered, prodigious talent for crafting symbolic visuals. roeg' s considerable efforts here remind the engaged viewer that film - - in the final analysis - - is truly a visual art form .
walkabout is one of those australian films that… isn’t. made with american money by an english director and english screenwriter, it’s nonetheless one of the most important films about the australian outback. along with wake in fright – which also premiered at the 1971 cannes film festival – walkabout solidified an international perception of australia’s outback as harsh, barren and exotic; an iconography reinforced by the likes of men at work and crocodile dundee in the years to come .
now, 27 years after the film' s release, the reconstructed
walkabout ,
which was never released on video in either version, has finally arrived. it opens today at the castro for a one - week run and plays january 17 - 20 at the uc theatre in berkeley .
blu - ray walkabout is tempting me to upgrade to blu - ray, but i am trying to resisting buying blu - ray player until i need to replace my dvd player. i would only re - buy handful of my dvd so it is not economical to upgrade just for one film .
walkabout is the rare film of its era to include an aboriginal actor in a leading role. the first film to do so was charles chauvel’s last film, jedda, starring robert tudawali and ngarla kunoth. eligible for a palme d’or in the award’s first year – 1955 – jedda is an australian take on romeo and juliet that remains an important milestone in australian cinema. like walkabout – and films of the era such as the chant of jimmie blacksmith – it concludes in tragedy for its aboriginal characters; whether the persistent victimhood of indigenous australians in these films is a reflection of their real - life tragedy at the hands of the white government, or a trite example of white filmmakers failing their characters depends entirely on your perspective .
one last note: if the romantic, sweeping music in
walkabout
sounds suspiciously like the score for
out of africa ,
it' s no accident. john barry wrote both, and he obviously borrowed from
walkabout
to create the oscar - winning, very similar work on
out of africa .
held, l. ,
myth and archetype in nicolas roeg' s walkabout ,
in post script (jacksonville, florida), spring - summer 1986 .
greenway, j. ,
film: no sex, no bushman ,
in national review (new york), october 1975 .
these questions willl strike a familiar chord as they are the same ones that have been chasing their tail since the film' s release .
an indigenous perspective on nowra' s book is provided here, and it too questions the film and nowra' s interpretation of it .
roeg creates in walkabout a world of his own, a microcosmos that is at once beautiful, primitive, wild, familiar yet unfamiliar, thoughtful, and thought provoking .
walkabout finds an emotional centre when the kids meet an aboriginal australian (gulpilil) who helps them find water and joins them as they drift between sun - parched settings .
gomez, joseph ,
another look at nicolas roeg ,
in film criticism (edinboro, pennsylvania), no. 6, 1981 .
choose your car and put your seat belt on, because you are about to drive through the free website highway of the british film industry .
after an opening intertitle explaining the meaning of the term walkabout – “in australia, when an aborigine man - child reaches sixteen, he is sent out into the land… [ t ] he aborigines call it the walkabout” – added by the studio in post - production, roeg’s film commences a montage that juxtaposes images of the outback – red rocks, dusty plains, sidney nolan paintings come to life – with footage of sydney – red brick walls, rows of schoolchildren, hordes of pedestrians – overlaid with traditional didgeridoo music. this kind of juxtaposition is judiciously throughout walkabout both to create an emotional affect and to contrast the perceptions of western modernity and aboriginal traditions .
( sorry if this repeats... my comment didn' t show up) i had to watch this film for my film history class. i really really enjoyed it however, i didn' t understand the last quarter of the film; and i truly wanted to. your explanation was so clear, interesting to read and enormously helpful! i have a whole new respect for this film. there are so many interesting facts about how it was made but i didn' t think that the symbolism ran that deep. thank you so much for posting! - inola
kleinhans, chuck ,
performance, walkabout, don' t look now, nicolas roeg—permutations without profundity ,
in jump cut (chicago), september - october 1974 .
waller, n. ,
nicolas roeg—a sense of wonder ,
in film criticism (edinboro, pennsylvania), no. 1, 1976 .
i am no film buff but happened upon this film, which i knew in name only, and thought it might be worth a watch. how pleased i am. though i felt i didn' t understand it much, reviews such as this have confirmed my thoughts about what was going on. and being driven to find reviews at all says something about how the film has affected me and i hope stays with me for some time .
... muir covers everything from film to television to books to retro toys with no - holds - barred affection ...
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it' s only blu - ray walkabout that would make me upgrade so it looks like i' ll have to make sure it' s a recorder which can be chipped .
as you should expect from a criterion reissue, this latest incarnation looks and sounds spectacular: if you have never owned walkabout on dvd, this is the type of film that justifies the expense and epitomizes the positive aspects of newer and better technology. to be certain, one does not need a big flat panel with surround - sound to fully enjoy the many charms of this particular film, but let’s face it, it’s the next best thing to seeing it in a theater .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
to celebrate the 20th anniversary of iconic australian movie' shine', we look back at the inspirational story behind the film, and its enduring themes .
the free website highway of the british film industry. for more information on the filmnav website or enquire about inclusion or advertsing please get in contact: urltoken
thank you for your wonderful blog on walkabout... this film completely blew me away, and this line taken from your writing summed it up ;
the film' s ultimate point is that there is nothing harsher and more difficult than living a life that goes against your very nature .
i was left reeling, crying deep tears of recognition. such a beautifully shot, wide wide wide open film. vast and full of amazing details. god how humans can just fuck things up, the scene of the guys with their shotguns, the sound of the guns so loud loud. horrific! gulpin - what a love. nina
two young siblings are stranded in the australian outback and are forced to cope on their own. they meet an australian boy on
walkabout
: a ritual separation from his tribe .
walkabout may not be an australian film in the technical definition, but it went on to form an enduring legacy. it is regarded as one of the earliest works of the australian new wave and is considered seminal — particularly for its bold, dreamlike exploration of the australian wilderness and the deep spiritual bonds between the land and its original occupants .
the word
walkabout
refers to an aboriginal rite of passage in which an adolescent aboriginal boy goes out alone in the bush for six months to initiate his manhood. that ritual doesn' t include chaperoning white people through the bush, of course, and one of the greatest points of tension in
walkabout
is the erotic curiosity that grows between agutter and gumpilil .
opening caption: in australia, when an aborigine man - child reaches sixteen, he is sent out into the land. for months he must live from it. sleep on it. eat of its fruit and flesh. stay alive. even if it means killing his fellow creatures. the aborigines call it the walkabout. this is the story of a
walkabout
.
fortunately for me (as a critic) and you (as a potential viewer), there' s more to walkabout than pure cinema. [ note to readers: i' m not against pure cinema; i just generally can' t handle it for more than thirty minutes and i find it difficult to write about. ] the plot may be minimal and the film may primarily define itself visually but those two factors intersect to provide the film with a multi - layered subtext. first, as roger ebert has noted in his great movies essay, the film is about the difficulty of communication between two separate cultures. secondly, you can read the film and its devastating conclusion as a tale about modernization' s effects on native culture. what types of struggles must an immigrant / colonized subject face when they are integrated into an industrialized society? third, you can read the film as a love story between the young aborigine boy on his walkabout (a coming of age ritual in which a boy fends for himself and, if he returns, is declared a man) and a white woman who is attracted to him, but unable to relate to him .
like many of the best comedies and tragedies, this weimar - era silent film understands how each mode is often a hair' s breadth from the other .
walkabout suggests that living off a harsh, natural land is tough work. you have scorpions, ants, dehydration and other challenges to overcome. you have to find water and hunt for your supper. but i believe the film' s ultimate point is that there is nothing harsher and more difficult than living a life that goes against your very nature .
the film is interspersed with numerous images of australian plant and animal life, along with its varied landscapes. the director often uses those images to emphasize events in the plot and set the emotional tone, most notably during the violent scene involving the rifle hunters. though many of the events are impossible in a natural setting—in one scene a wombatwanders past the sleeping children in the middle of a desert—they create a backdrop of a populous, varied environment. in walkabout, an analysis of the film, author louis nowra wrote :
this critique of civilization recurs throughout the film. for instance, as mentioned above, the boy and the girl find an oasis of life in the desert - -
electronic dance only appears in small bits in the film, not as a whole track and is near the end when the children find the abandoned' village' .
no not really. i used to we used to make model aeroplanes out of balsa wood but move that over. we' re not on film are we ?
the best film to partner with the film is perhaps the aforementioned wake in fright. the films share a release date and setting, while offering similarly robust perspectives on the outback. while wake in fright eschews the indigenous perspective to consider the white man’s corruption in the australian wilderness – kangaroo hunting and gambling and brawling and far, far too many beers. taken in concert with walkabout, the two films offer a complex and complete – if not entirely complimentary – portrait of australia’s outskirts as it was perceived some 45 years ago .
the film’s regular use of montage and intercutting emphasises roeg’s trademark “rather bizarre attitudes towards time” (his own words). as in his follow - up, don’t look now, walkabout eschews the linear conventions of commercial cinema for something ambiguous and amorphous. there’s the suggestion that roeg’s curious atemporality is inspired by aboriginal culture, unbound by the rigidity of clocks and schedules .
we revisit nicolas roeg' s 1971 coming - of - age classic,' walkabout' (now available at sbs on demand), and the questions it raised about race, civilisation and sexuality .
soon, the girl and boy encounter an aborigine teenager (david gulpilil) on a
walkabout ,
a rite of passage in which young men trace the heritage of their ancestors on the land .
others who saw it on its initial release will share those memories, but at the same time, some have raised questions about nowra' s views on the film .
gulpilil, born in 1953, had appeared in aboriginal dance troupes, and went on to a long career in australian film and television roles. he is credited as gumpilil .
walkabout' s obvious concern is the relationship between two parties, separated by centuries of diverting societal behaviors, and thus, differentiated perceptions of sexual roles and etiquette. but what ensues is more ambiguous and interpretative .
the pessimism of the conclusion may be inappropriate to australia, and particularly to aboriginal life today, but perhaps we can see walkabout as a memorial representation of all those indigenous peoples who have died in the colonising process .
after the initial mixed and muddled box office reception, the film has gone on to attract all kinds of critical attention, and been accepted into the canon of australian - manufactured films .
speaking from london, the 70 - year - old film - maker is unsurprised that the film has aged so well, citing the essential timelessness of the story :
what interests me is always the same thing: a simple story about life and being alive, not covered with sophistry, but addressing the most basic human themes: birth, death, mutability .
are these two films just exercises in melancholy voyeurism? apparently so, unless one is to take roeg’s clodhopper homilies seriously such as the quote from a. e. housman near the end of walkabout, which transforms the victorian’s genteel stoicism into an edgar guest platitude. apparently so, unless one is to find the references to borges in performance carrying the film to a more philosophical level than business equals crime .
a young sister and brother are abandoned in the harsh australian outback and must learn to cope in the natural world, without their usual comforts, in this hypnotic masterpiece from nicolas roeg. along the way, they meet a young aborigine on his “walkabout, ” a rite of passage in which adolescent boys are initiated into manhood by journeying into the wilderness alone. walkabout is a thrilling adventure as well as a provocative rumination on time and civilization .
in his commentary roeg disclaims putting up the opening title explaining the' walkabout', suggesting either twentieth century fox did it, or someone else did it on their behalf. he says he dislikes that kind of explanatory device .
the roger ebert essay that accompanied the dvd release is available on the criterion website (at time of writing) here, while paul ryan takes a lengthier look on the same website under the header walkabout: landscapes of memory .
the film’s most surreal, and strangely wonderful sequence occurs when the aborigine, misconstruing the girl’s gratitude for love, performs a ritualistic courting dance for her. it is a scene that ends almost as quickly — and silently — as it begins, but the subsequent events will forever change both people’s lives. as the film concludes, everything is brought full circle, with a twist .
with the outback serving as both a backdrop and character in the film' s narrative, and by marshaling a voice - over poem at just the right moment (from alfred edward housman' s 1896 work
a shropshire lad ,
) roeg crafts an immensely emotional film; one that will deeply affect you for days after a screening. this is even more the case now, since roeg' s director' s cut is featured on the blu ray edition rather than the original theatrical release (which trimmed much of the film' s full frontal nudity) .
only in the film' s last scene, do we see an older, reflective woman consider the aborigine boy; and what he meant in her life; and what he gave to her. she imagines a scene right out of paradise: the three wanderers in the desert frolicking in the water; on a rock. it is an image of lost innocence, and it is the image we leave on in walkabout .
early in the film, for example, we see agutter' s character setting - up a blanket and picnic lunch out in harsh desert; clearly a misguided attempt to tame the unspoiled earth. while she imposes mankind' s sense of order on the desert, the film cross - cuts to views of lizards and other inhabitants, going about their business, oblivious to her attempts .
hickling - hudson, a. ,
white construction of black identity in australian films about aborigines ,
in literature / film quarterly (salisbury, maryland), no. 4, 1990 .
roeg and agutter were in separate locations when their contribution to the commentary was recorded, but each offer insights into the film and the making of it, and their thoughts chime together reasonably well .
“see the difference between artificiality and naturalness. you and i can see it in this image or set of images, but the characters in the film cannot, and this is our superiority. ”
walkabout' s ending diagrams the death of innocence. gulpilil' s character has learned that he cannot adapt to the strange rules of modern
civilization .
and in that coda - - set years after his demise - agutter' s sense of hoplessness is tangible. it reflects, purposefully, the little boy' s sense of defeat early in the film, upon reckoning with the unending desert, one stretching to unknown horizons .
i think the film is neutral about such goals. like its lizards that sit unblinking in the sun, it has no agenda for them. it sees the life of civilization as arid and unrewarding, but only easy idealism allows us to believe that the aborigine is any happier, or his life more rewarding (the film makes a rather unpleasant point of the flies constantly buzzing around him) .
but returned to modern civilization (and bred to that civilization), agutter' s character cannot make the same leap. instead, she denies any feeling she might have for the aborigine boy and falls back on the
etiquette
of her culture. early in walkabout we see her practicing etiquette lessons while listening to a program on the radio; and that' s the very world the english girl retreats to at film' s end .
the appeal of roeg’s films to date rests on different qualities for different audiences. for the user of mild psychedelic drugs, performance, and to a lesser extent the other two films, provides a great multiplicity of visual and aural inputs. however the users often confuse the undeniable plethora of impressions, and its pleasantness, with indicating a meaningfulness and aesthetic complexity which is not there on sober examination. somewhat overlapping this audience is the appeal of the first two films to late adolescents, who seek in film art an experience, a knowledge, a statement in a somewhat different form. this too, roeg certainly provides, but exploring “identity” rather than “being” has its limits for viewers who have moved on from the former to the latter in their own experience. for people especially interested in film as an art, roeg is very interesting in his willingness to exploit film as film and for his ability to work in the commercial feature system successfully while pushing the uniquely filmic over standard melodramatic film narrative. with don' t look now roeg demonstrated his appeal for film goers who prefer classy entertainment, though he did so by focusing on characters and a life style that seems right out of the ad pages of the new yorker .
i' m getting in a walkabout mood in anticipation of the march 5th screening at the nft (with jenny agutter and luc roeg attending) and i was wondering about an aspect of the film which i haven' t seen analysed. at the beginning a voice says
faites vos jeux, monsieurs, dames s' il vous plait
, and at the end a title comes up which reads
rien ne va plus
. i must admit it took several viewings of the film before i even noticed these, probably because the volume of the voiceover is quite low and the closing title is probably chopped off from many tv (and even cinema) prints .
perhaps more plainly, the destruction of the desert oasis and its resources is referenced late in the film when the boy and the girl come across a similar setting, writ large: a virtually abandoned mining town .
for a film made in australia at the time, the soundtrack is relatively advanced, with the sound effects, and the effects - laden music, and the radio, contributing to the sense of a tone poem .
is
walkabout
only about what it seems to be about? is it a parable about noble savages and the crushed spirits of city dwellers? that' s what the film' s surface seems to suggest, but i think it' s also about something deeper and more elusive: the mystery of communication. it ends with lives that are destroyed, in one way or another, because two people could not invent a way to make their needs and dreams clear .
walkabout ’s screenplay, written by english playwright edward bond, is famously spare; roeg described it as a “fourteen - page prose poem. ” with such a slender script, the production thus relied on improvisation. consequentially, the final product tends to rely more on images than dialogue to tell its story (a familiar feature of roeg’s filmography). this suits the way the film emphasises on the difficulty of authentic communication throughout, whether in the trappings of ‘civilised’ society or in the australian wilderness – as discussed in ebert’s aforementioned review, where he argues that walkabout is about the “mystery of communication, ” noting that “the crucial detail is that the two teenagers never find a way to communicate, not even by using sign language. ”
dominated by dazzling photography, gorgeous images and a lush john barry score, walkabout ably serves up a side - by - side comparison between disparate worlds: city life in modern adelaide (though it looks like sydney) and the wild, untamed life of the outback. unexpectedly, the crueler, more savage and difficult world, according to the film, is that of the modern and
civilized
man. in the desert, at least, you can understand your enemies .
a final voice over ends the film on a melancholy and wistful note .
that is the land of lost content / i see it shining plain / the happy highways where i went / and cannot come again .
“is it a parable about noble savages and the crushed spirits of city dwellers? that’s what the film’s surface suggests, but i think it’s about something deeper and more elusive: the mystery of communication. ” [ 7 ]
walkabout: drama. starring jenny agutter, david gumpilil and lucien john. directed and photographed by nicholas roeg. written by edward bond. (not rated. 100 minutes. at the castro through january 9 and the uc theatre in berkeley january 17 - 20. )
but the children - a teenage girl (jenny agutter) and her younger brother (lucien john) - survive, and wander aimlessly in the wilderness until they meet up with an aboriginal boy (david gulpilil) who is on a walkabout as part of his initiation .
the film' s opening shots form a mosaic of metropolitan life strung together with a buzzy tati - like vibe. roeg overlays didgeridoo music onto cluttered cityscapes loaded with cars, buildings, businesspeople and slickers going about daily routines .
it was re - released in 1998 in australia, and did a $ 68, 720 in business, equivalent to a $ 95, 507 in 2009 a $, according to the film victoria report on australian box office .
the film is commonly dated to 1971 by the oxford and other databases. however the copyright notice is for 1970, and this site uses the date of copyright, where available, as the best indication of year of manufacture .
like ted kotcheff’s masterpiece wake in fright, which was released the same year as walkabout and also took a long time to earn its reputation as a classic, the unforgettable vividness with which roeg captures the australian outback arises from the perspective of a foreigner trying to understand it .
“home > festival archives > selections > in competition > official selection 1971″. festival de cannes website. france: festival de cannes. archived from the original on 2010 - 08 - 26. retrieved 2010 - 08 - 26. “official selection 1971…. walkabout directed by nicolas roeg”
this scene is an important refutation to interpretations of the film that reduce it to a paternalistic take on aboriginal culture. while walkabout undeniably romanticises indigenous australian culture, it does so with a critical eye. in the final scene, the girl’s conversation with her husband is interrupted with a syrupy reminiscence of her time in the bush, where the three children frolic naked in a waterhole. but the scene is not a memory, but a reconstructed daydream – an idealised, fictionalised memory of something that never occurred .
wow john - no one' s biting on the comments. or else you' ve been too busy to mod them, perhaps. anyway, i read half of your review yesterday, and then sought out the film and watched it for myself. i' ve just come back and read the remainder of your review and from my perspective, you nailed it. the imagery is very much
in your face
and the film pulls no punches in displaying the sharp contrasts between
modern
life and the natural symbiotic relationship between the aborigine and the outback. reading some other online reviews paint the film is being exploitative of the young actress, but in viewing the film that concept was farthest from my mind. i thought the director skillfully used just about every shot to evoke a natural emotional reaction that was completely inline with his message. the freaky 1960' s - 1970' s vibe is prevalent throughout and, being a child of the 70' s, i thoroughly enjoyed every drop of it. i' d never seen or heard of this film before reading your review. thank you for sharing it with us john. - nick
cinematically, the contrasts in roeg’s films are continuous. in walkabout, for example, the urban children are first seen together in a swimming pool next to a body of natural water. their western urban clothing is contrasted with the native’s belt of snakes. the urban pair rely on verbal language and find security in the voices on their transistor radio, while communication with the young hunter is effective only through gesture, etc. at times roeg’s fascination with visual antonyms is almost bludgeoning. the native hunts with spear and hands while europeans are shown killing game with a rifle fired from a jeep. cutting apart a kangaroo for dinner in the wild is opposed to an urban butcher shop. a burning auto is crosscut with a roasting animal carcass. these juxtapositions—and walkabout is especially loaded with them - are a lévi - strauss type of structuralist’s perfect data... but they lack any especial meaning. in walkabout the establishing sequence at the beginning gives us the contrast, but the contrast is then continued for the rest of the film in an all too predictable vein .
walkabout was on tcm lastnight. i had never heard of the film, nor did i watch it from the begining. i missed the part about the father, and i mistakenly assumed he died in a car accident while the childen were unharmed. i found your commentary while searching online to learn more about the movie. after reading several different review sites i' m dismayed no one thought it odd that none of the dialog of any of the aboriginals is subtitled. the film would seem to be very much about city vs nature, loss of innocence, commentary on isolation in proximity, etc. what got my attention is during the entire film there is an entire culture left mute only in so much as we have no idea what any of the aboriginals are saying. for all we know they could have been told by the director to speak gibberish, or they are talking about us in front of our faces - they see us as children dependent on our toys. in this i wondered if the film mocked the viewers. there is more concern about nudity of the girl than the tacit silencing of the native culture. how very missionary! ! the irony! !! ! in the end i was insulted that the aboriginal boy took his life over the rejection from the girl. it was great for the shock value but for me the film leapt from a plausable commentary filled with symbolism to a cliche designed to ruffle english sensibilties .
taken in toto, this threatens to mythologise and romanticise indigenous australian culture. indeed, it’s easy to regard gulpilil’s character as the epitome of the reductive “noble savage” stereotype: pure, simple, idealised. this is tempered, somewhat, by the prominence of death within the film – suicides and burnt - out cars and abandoned towns and fields filled with buffalo bones. walkabout expands upon the book’s comparatively simple conception of aboriginal culture as “devoted to one purpose… the battle with death” by portraying death with unvarnished, brutal honesty .
the most effective parallels and contrasts in performance involve identities, social roles, sexual roles, disguises, costumes, and performances. in the last analysis it adds up to permutations without profundity. roeg puts the film characters and the film audience through a lot of changes, but to no apparent end. granted, that carefully going through the film one can find traces of references to jorge luis borges, bergman’s persona, painters francis bacon, richard hamilton, and peter blake. but in the flow of the film they are not picked up, or if they are (merged faces from persona, a pretty obvious one), they don' t add anything, not even self - congratulation at having caught it. if the outside references mean anything, particularly to a stoned audience, it is merely as part of the cultural ambiance of our times, and it would be pretentious to make anything out of it as far as criticism of the film goes. but, one feels roeg really is trying to make something more out of his films than simple mental massages or mind candy for freaks. in a recent sight and sound interview (winter 1973 - 74) he confesses his
but the film doesn’t present these two cultures as equals, instead according the aboriginal traditions with a sense of purity absent from ‘civilised’ culture. this is explicated as the film progresses; a scene involving weather balloonists stationed in the outback is overtly farcical, while footage of white hunters shooting buffalo for sport earns tears from gulpilil’s silent observer. with a montage of abandoned buffalo corpses, roeg positions the white man’s hunting as cruel and excessive, in contrast to the aborigine’s purposeful communion with nature .
the idea for the film - the eventual script started at a reputed fourteen or so pages, and in the end ran no longer than fifty eight or sixty pages - came from the novel by james vance marshall, first published in 1959 .
considered on its most basic terms as a deeply moving and occasionally disturbing drama that features consistently astonishing cinematography, walkabout is entirely successful. as a subtly, almost casually polemic work, it is certain to compel just about any viewer to consider the world, and their preconceptions, in a slightly (or radically) different way. on deeper levels, the film’s refreshing lack of calculated profundity allows the arresting vistas of the australian outback — at once gorgeous and grim — to serve as both setting and a wordless commentary that speaks volumes .
those entranced by walkabout ’s disregard for linear time and exploitation of disorienting editing would do well to investigate roeg’s early filmography. the likes of don’t look now, the man who fell to the earth and the controversial thriller bad timing demonstrate the unique ambiguity that made roeg an important arthouse director .
the movie takes its title from a custom among the australian aborigines: during the transition to young manhood, an adolescent aborigine went on a
walkabout
of six months in the outback, surviving (or not) depending on his skills at hunting, trapping and finding water in the wilderness .
is it a parable about noble savages and the crushed spirits of city dwellers? that' s what the film' s surface seems to suggest, but i think it' s also about something deeper and more elusive: the mystery of communication.
walkabout is a 1971 film set in the australian outback , directed by nicolas roeg and starring jenny agutter , luc roeg ( credited as " lucien john " ) and david gulpilil ( credited as " david gumpilil " ) . edward bond wrote the screenplay , which is loosely based on the 1959 novel walkabout by james vance marshall . walkabout premiered in competition at the 1971 cannes film festival . 
walkabout is a 1971 film set in the australian outback, directed by nicolas roeg and starring jenny agutter, luc roeg (credited as " lucien john ") and david gulpilil (credited as " david gumpilil "). edward bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the 1959 novel walkabout by james vance marshall. walkabout premiered in competition at the 1971 cannes film festival.
walkabout is a 1971 film set in the australian outback, directed by nicolas roeg and starring jenny agutter, luc roeg (credited as " lucien john ") and david gulpilil (credited as " david gumpilil "). edward bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the 1959 novel walkabout by james vance marshall. walkabout premiered in competition at the 1971 cannes film festival.