Nicolas Roeg’s stunningly shot journey through the Australian outback has been remastered to enhance the cinematography that embraces the environment and the creatures who dominate it over the humans that traverse its wide expanses. A journey for both the camera and the protagonists as they stride through the landscape seeking purpose and understanding their own development in the blistering heat. Return to nature or a wider perception of human existence in the world? It may sound overtly philosophical for a film that centres on three youngsters wandering in a beautiful but harsh environment but perhaps that is the point.
Girl (Jenny Agutter) and her brother Boy (Luc Roeg as Lucien John) are left stranded in the vast Australian outback when their father (John Meillon), ostensibly taking them for a picnic, shoots at them, burns the car and commits suicide. The children have no transport, no perception of where civilisation is within distance and no food or water in the intense heat of the desert. They meet an aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil), who is on walkabout, a coming of age ritual where a 16-year old must travel and survive alone as a progression from boy to man. They communicate through mime and movement as their lives together take them on a journey across the land seeking food and water to survive. But can the two cultures embrace or collide in the midst of the debilitating heat and extremely harsh surroundings?
Almost a precursor to Life on Earth: A Natural History by David Attenborough with an existential minimalist narrative, Walkabout is a remarkable film on many levels. It was, upon release, granted with some critical praise but did not do well at the box-office (unlike the perennial family favourite The Railway Children, released the same year and also starring Jenny Agutter). In many ways it is easy to see why a subconscious linking of cultures and survival amidst a confrontational landscape was a hard sell in a market requiring satisfactory conclusions rather than the clashes and confusion depicted here. It is symptomatic of much of Roeg’s film-making where the visual exuberance surpasses the often undesirable or unimaginable characterisation. His exemplary work as a cinematographer (Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death, Clive Donner’s Nothing But the Best, François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 and John Schlesinger’s Far from the Madding Crowd among many more) leads the way for this, his first solo directing film after Performance (which he also shot). Like Performance, Walkabout has a narrative structure that is not distinctly linear: the premise and resolution occur in a roughly bookended road-scene and normalised society but the process of going from one space to the other is intercut with elements prior to and post this narrative. The distinctive use of cinematography on the wildlife and the landscape is exemplary, from extreme close-ups of insects that become sharply focused from their background environments to long yellow-sanded deserts and pools within wooded areas where the three swim to alleviate sunburn and relax from their strenuous walking. The animals play a vital role in the walkabout ritual and indeed the survival of all three as they learn to kill and eat using only what they can make as weapons from their surroundings. White Australian “civilisation” is seen in the stark contrast between killing for food as opposed to slaughtering multiple animals with guns from large vehicles hacking through the outback. And the reality of killing wildlife and the implementation are shown in the differences between these two approaches, from survival to gratuitous masculinity. The cultural differences between the siblings and their new companion is notable (and has severe outcomes) but they learn – in part – to escape from the mores of their previous life, at least for the time of their own walkabout. Crucially the characters in Walkabout are not given names as they are representative rather than specified. This includes all the sub-characters who become just representations rather than individuals. This is a story about the three protagonists, unnamed in a wider natural world.
The sumptuous cinematography with its attention to detail and colour, from the rainbow flares on the lens when the sun comes into a building they discover to the vast external shots that contrast the dry desert and the blue water are beautifully displayed in this 4k scan and restoration that shows the photography to be highly detailed to the extent of seeing celluloid grain and lens flare that enhance the reality of the production. Also included of the disc are a plethora of extras including an interview with Jenny Agutter where she describes her own journey on the film from an audition at the age of 14 to the shooting two years later when Roeg had finally received the budget to make his dream project.
An essential purchase which, as with all of Nicolas Roeg’s films, doesn’t so much inspire repeat viewings as demands them, as the nuances, aesthetics and experiences are enhanced on each subsequent watch.