Review of Walkabout (1971) by Robin D — 28 Oct 2008

An urban, slightly sleazy father takes his two public school children into the outback for a picnic. He's in a suit, and has brought some paperwork. His kids are in their stiff school uniforms. Clothes, demeanor, action and the Volkswagon Beetle all jar with the hostile desert location. Something is wrong. We find out what when Dad starts shooting at his son, before blowing his brains out. Sister and brother barely survive a trek through the desert, before crossing paths with a teenage Aborigine on walkabout. It is a rescue of sorts, but danger still stalks the three youngsters.

Walkabout is a disturbing film, a difficult piece to get to grips with. It isn't Swallows and Amazons, but nor is it Lord of the Flies. Like the interpersonal relationships between the characters, the film itself is frustratingly unknowable. Images of Australian wildlife snarling, spitting, preying on each other, or just staring disinterestedly, provide the undercurrent of tension between the human sojourners. Jenny Agutter takes a utilitarian approach to her rescuer, the supremely impressive David Gulpilil. She cares for her brother (though little else) in that stilted, clipped, emotionally stunted manner that British public schools cultivate. Her brother seems bizarrely unaware of events, notwithstanding his lack of years, but adapts better than his sister, forging a bond and rudimentary communication with the Aboriginal boy. The rescuer remains inscrutable, benevolent but uncomprehending as he tries to take Agutter for his own in an ill-fated courtship ritual that does not cross the cultural boundary. The woman is as functional to him as the kangaroos and lizards he hunts, though less easy to snarl.

Roeg's vision may be a bleak one. Ultimately, he seems to say, we can never know each other. To have human contact is to be hurt, perhaps brutally so. The film ends with Agutter many years later in urban suburbia, apparently as estranged from her be-suited, mustachioed husband as she was from the Aboriginal.

And yet there are glimpses of hope. The playful climbing of the tree, the clowning around between the two boys, could be mere lulls in the tedium and brutality, or a sign that we can make a go of things. Most optimistic of all is the upbeat ending, the three children bathing naked in a water-hole, carefree and lacking any of the sexual tension that made the teenagers' relationship so charged. An idyllic illusion, perhaps?

Walkabout is challenging, provocative, and despite those clunky 1970s transitions, stands out as an all-time classic. It defies categorisation. Experimental and uncompromising, it is a film that demands re-thinking with every repeat viewing.