Walkabout takes a premise that brims with condescending racism and Oscar-bait melodrama: a pair of white Australians are lost in the wilderness, but saved by a silent and resourceful Aboriginal, who teaches them the ways of nature and leads the young woman to a sexual awakening. It doesn't so much escape from these trappings as sweep them aside by making the whole narrative elliptical and bizarre, more reminiscent of a heat-drenched dream than a realist narrative.
Roeg's visual gifts are the main attraction here, from the dissonantly- edited montages to the brutal close-ups of natural life. Walkabout is not a film that asks you to sit back and admire the beauty of a natural vista, but rather one that rubs your nose in the violent struggle for survival that is the wilderness. Jenny Agutter manages to wrench the viewer's attention away from the bizarre visuals, with both her beauty and her strangely detached air. David Guilpilil's Aborigine does certainly fall into the "noble savage" archetype, but there are some moments in the film which suggest that this too is an illusion.
Walkabout is a film that at first seems instantly dated, but then suddenly becomes too strange to fit in comfortably with any time period or movement. For fans of experimental cinema, this is a must-see.
Roeg's visual gifts are the main attraction here, from the dissonantly- edited montages to the brutal close-ups of natural life. Walkabout is not a film that asks you to sit back and admire the beauty of a natural vista, but rather one that rubs your nose in the violent struggle for survival that is the wilderness. Jenny Agutter manages to wrench the viewer's attention away from the bizarre visuals, with both her beauty and her strangely detached air. David Guilpilil's Aborigine does certainly fall into the "noble savage" archetype, but there are some moments in the film which suggest that this too is an illusion.
Walkabout is a film that at first seems instantly dated, but then suddenly becomes too strange to fit in comfortably with any time period or movement. For fans of experimental cinema, this is a must-see.