We are told from a title card that a walkabout is a ritual undergone by adolescent male Aborigines (the native people of Australia) on their path to adulthood. The teenager is given a certain distance to walk, where he must entirely live off the land, with no assistance from his tribe. That sounded like a great premise for a movie, but when the film opened I was surprised to find that the opening of the film follows two white kids as they go on a picnic in the desert. And like so many films with racial themes, Walkabout falls into a trap. It wants to be about the journey of an Aboriginal boy turning into a man, but Roeg apparently feels that an audience needs a white protagonist. We didn't and it dilutes the movie's power.
The two white kids (no character is in the movie is named, so I'll have to be general) are British, traveling with their father (John Melion) by car across the Australian outback. They stop for a picnic for lunch, and the father tries to kill the children, for reasons unexplained. When he fails he pours gasoline over themselves and the car and lights a match. Right here we have a problem. This plot twist is so unexpected and so poorly handled that it is completely unbelievable. Even beyond that, the kids seem amazingly unphazed by these events. Reason: it was just a plot device to get the kids trapped in the outback.
The teenaged girl (Jenny Agutter) and her younger brother (Lucien John) begin a directionless walk across the desert, and nearly die of thirst until the reach an oasis, which also soon dries up. They are about ready to despair until they meet an Aboriginal teenager (David Gulpilil) on his walkabout. He saves their lives by showing them how to find water (just did for it, it's right underground). He hunts lizards and kangaroo for the two Europeans, and despite the fact they don't speak each others language, they quickly develop a bond. This is especially pronounced between the Aboginal and the girl, who skinny dip together in a lake.
At this point, I wondered if the movie was going to develop into some kind of romance between the two, which could have been an interesting idea, but the movie doesn't go that way. Instead, it has a somewhat confusing and certainly ambiguous ending that's just frustrating. The problem is basically that the movie isn't fair to its subject. If its about the Aboriginal on his walkabout, why isn't his dialogue subtitled? Why does the movie always take perspective of the white people? And if these white people are in the movie at all, why aren't they more upset that their father is dead and just tried to kill them?!
I am giving the movie a tacit recommendation mainly because of the cinematography, which is also by Roeg. It is absolutely gorgeous and you could easily take a still of most shots and hang it in an art galley. Despite the fact the movie isn't brave enough to make him the protagonist, Gulpilil, Australia's foremost Aboriginal actor, is excellent. Gulpilil has such a strong and charismatic screen presence that it's a real shame he's not given the range of roles he deserves, but he's always a pleasure to watch.
Perhaps I have been to hard on the movie. Walkabout does not live up to its reputation as a classic, but is a good movie, rarely boring and interesting for its running length. But it should have had the guts to be what it claims to be.
Walkabout (1971)