Walkabout (Nicolas Roeg, 1971): Australia | UK

Reviewed by Ala’ Khan. Viewed on DVD.

Stranded in the Australian outback, a brother and sister must learn to cope in the unknown. They encounter an aboriginal boy on his walkabout who helps them survive and acts as their guide.

Walkabout is an experimental film that contrasts the wilderness of the Australian outback with the highly “civilized” and modernized city. Roeg is working within the Marxist Film Theory, an ideological approach to film that portrays the struggles between the imposed ideals of capitalism and the simple, rustic nature of the outback and its native people.
The film opens with a series of shots of Sydney, Australia with all the sounds that are associated with a hustle and bustle of urban life. The narrative of the film is disconnected from the traditional Hollywood drama. The action of the film is prompted by the the suicide of the children’s father, yet the event seems only to place the children in the outback alone. Neither of them has any strong emotional reaction to their father’s death nor are his reasons for taking his life ever explained. The focus is rather on the events to come: their struggle to survive. Nevertheless, the gruesomeness of such a terrible, self- imposed death is emphasized with several jump cuts of the father falling over, dead. One of these shots is taken within the frame of the car window, the glass blown out. This emphasizes the fact that the father died in the context of an automobile (which explodes when his gun goes off), a technological advancement that is a convenient form of transportation, but also a detriment to the environment with its smog and gas consumption. This contrast between the outback and the city permeates the entire film. On the most basic level there is the juxtaposition of the children’s heavily clothed white skin and the almost entirely nude black aboriginal boy. When the little brother tries to emulate their guide wearing his shirt on his head, he severally burns is back. The physical incompatibility of the white children and the environment speaks of a pessimism in transitioning to a life like those of the natives. On the other hand, the fact that the boy wants to be like the aborigine reflects his childish, and natural, interest in living among the elements. Beyond that, the simple impracticality of wearing stuffy school uniforms in the wilderness is almost comical as the older sister is constantly fidgeting with her and her brother’s clothing and worrying about their appearance. From the beginning of their interaction the contrast is established between these methods of living. Parched, the girl cannot think of another way to say “water” other than verbally in the English language, while the her younger brother manages to convey the message of thirst through universally understood hand gestures. Perhaps the boy’s ability to communicate more successfully with the aborigine speaks to the basic human connection that links us all but is somehow lost as we learn the culture we grow up in.

The uselessness of skills learned in the industrialized world, a concept that furthers the Marxist approach to the film that wants to move always from capitalist culture, is juxtaposed to the basic survival skills that allow the company to endure. While the black boy works on skinning and cooking a rabbit for their dinner, the children listen to the radio and practices math tables. The radio itself is a prop that symbolizes technology and the children’s (especially the girl’s) desire to stay connected to life in the modern city. In contrast, the aborigine, on his walkabout, has voluntarily removed himself from any family, friends or comforts to embark on a spiritual journey and discover himself. Symbolically, towards the end of the film, the children leave the radio behind, abandoned as broken. Every modern invention, from the radio to the father’s car, thus is rendered useless. In contrast there are long takes and freeze-frames of animals, insects and landscapes throughout the film that highlight the beauty of nature. There are several shots of lizards eating bugs or dead carcasses, which demonstrate that although the natural world may seem harsh in the face of the comforts of modernity, there is a balance and beauty to the cycle of life that is unavoidable. At the very beginning of the film, while the older sister is setting up the picnic lunch for her family, there is a close up shot of an ant walking across the table cloth and the girl’s finger killing it. Although is seems a natural reaction to have, as the film progresses and the importance of wildlife and human’s harmony with living in nature is illustrated, the killing of the ant become symbolic of human’s general apathy and disrespect to other living creatures. These diversions from the main action of the plot slow the pace of the film. The action is basic and the rhythm steady, putting an emphasis on the characters interactions with each other and nature.

Once the little band reaches the first signs of civilization their journey is tainted with death. The road they find is symbolic of the colonizer’s tendency to cut through the land for their own gain, disregarding the natural balance of the landscape. The diagonal of the rode is also restrictive, dictating where the children’s lives will lead, while the vastness of the wilderness lent itself to possibilities beyond the construct of man. The immensity of the setting was exaggerated with the use of a wide-angle lens when all three wonderers was shot from an aerial perspective. Also important was the use of looking space, especially with the girl looking off into the distance because she, more than the other two, wanted to return to the city. The aboriginal boy, who uses his hunting skills only for survival, witnesses the ruthless killing of animals simply for sport by a jeep full of white men with rifles. Witnessing this disregard for life, the boy dances for the girl he seems to have formed an attachment to and when she reacts in fear he ends his own life. It can be interpreted that his dance was a request for her to say with him in the wilderness, possibly as a life mate. He would be able to protect her from what he perceives to be the ruthless nature of the white man. He dances around the abandoned building and from the girl’s perspective he is framed by the dilapidated doors and windows and she must make her choice between the unknown wild and the familiar urbanized.

The goal of the film is not to create a realistic tale of wilderness survival but to call to attention social concerns for the modern method of life. Discontinuity editing reminds the audience that what is on the screen is a creation. Wipes accompanied by the sound of someone turning the pages of a book are used as a temporal ellipsis when the little boy is telling the aborigine and his sister a story. The synthetic feeling of the wipes can be carried over to the mundane daily habits of the siblings.
In the context of the isolated wilderness there are essentially only three characters, each of them round even though the aboriginal does not speech on a language comprehendible to the audience. This additional contrast between the Caucasian children and him serves to further emphasis the importance of actions over words. Marxist thought itself is based on the revolution, taking action to change one’s condition.

There is a sequence that uses parallel editing that shows a group of aborigine women exploring the abandoned car and the children playing in a tree with the aborigine boy. The action of each group is similar because they are playing around but the burned car is foreign and sinister and when the radio turns on the women are scared away, and what use do they have for the vehicle anyway? It is just rubbish.

There is a long temporal ellipsis at the end of the film when the girl, older—an idea conveyed by her makeup and new clothing—and in a relationship with a white man, reminisces about the potential for a life she may have had if she had stayed with the aboriginal boy. In her fantasy she is nude, as are her brother and the boy. Her previous preoccupation with her clothing has been replaced with an appreciation of the freedom afforded by the great outdoors—manifested in the lack of clothing necessary there. It is also telling that is her daydream her brother is present while in reality he is not shown. Maybe it is that modern social structure alienates families from each other, emphasizing individual success and progress, while in a tribal setting the family is the key unit. Her apparent regret as not staying behind is in line with the overall message of the film that is a criticism some of the modern notions of “civilization” and consumerism.

The “walkabout” as an aboriginal coming of age journey can be applied not only to the aboriginal boy but to the girl herself who if forced to acknowledge the benefits of the aboriginal life style and make decisions about her future. The success of the either the girl or the boy’s walkabout is questionable since the boy commits suicide and the girl apparently regrets returning to the place of her youth. This is perhaps reflective of a pessimism regarding the hope for any fruitful interaction between these two different worlds.
This film plays against the traditional idea of the Lacanian film theory. Traditional media often idealizes and romanticizes the modern and post- modern world of consumerism, while Walkabout creates a sense that we should, if not go back, consider the benefits of a simpler lifestyle in contrast to that of modern technology and selfishness.