| World Film Classics: Walkabout | |
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Directed
by Nicolas RoegStarring: Luc Roeg, Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil
Screenplay: Edward Bond
UK, 1971
Once, I picked up a hitchhiking couple on the way to a Grateful Dead show. They told me that they had spent a few months in a village somewhere in Mexico, and that they were still shell-shocked after having been dropped off in downtown Dallas by a truck driver. "It was awful, man," the girl said. "All the cars, the buildings, the noise, people running around like crazy, it was horrible." Her friend added, "Civilization is just so full of bad vibes."
Nicolas Roeg's second film, Walkabout reminded me of the two hippies because it relies on the same contrast of nature and city life that nearly drove my hitchhikers over the edge. (I hope they made it back to what they consider saner regions.) The film follows two unnamed siblings, a young boy, played by Roeg's son Luc and a teenage girl (Jenny Agutter), on an odyssey through the Australian outback after their father abandons them.
They are upper-class kids, and we watch them stumble over mountains and through deserts in their school uniforms while a didgeridoo plays on the soundtrack. Soon, they meet a Aborigine who is on his "walkabout," a rite of initiation during which young males are sent to live off the land for a period of time. Without being able to communicate at first, the three make their way through the stunning landscape together, and sexual tensions between the black man and the white girl smolder and flare. Slowly, as they leave the strict rules of civilization behind them, the boy turns into a veritable little gatherer and kangaroo hunter.
Or so it seems -- this movie is not heavy on dialogue, plot, and exposition. Rather, it unfolds through its beautiful imagery and its music. A lot is left to interpretation, and even most of what I have said so far might be arguable. Walkabout feels a bit like seeing Koyaanisqatsi with some plot. Roeg structures the story by aiming the camera on the strange wilderness that share the land with the humans. Lizards, snakes, otherworldly critters, and the sun rising over ever-changing landscapes make for a strong contrast for the hurried shots of the city that opens the film. By the time the kids return to civilization, it's the streets and angular corners of the buildings that look just plain weird.
Still, Walkabout doesn't sentimentalize nature. There's death out there, and people fall victim to civilization and the wilderness. What I liked best about the film was the way it renders the sensual details of life in the desert -- the heat, the texture of the rocks, the wetness of kangaroo guts, the stench of decay, the sweetness of the fruit, the weariness of a long day's walk.... whatever else the film might be, it felt real to me.
I think it is this subjectivity that best defines this film: like some kind of cinematic Rorschach test, everybody will see something else in it. Watching this movie becomes a bit like a walkabout for the viewer, a ritual in itself. Don't miss it.
