# Walkabout (1971)

### reviewed by
"Average Joe" Barlow

    WALKABOUT
    A review excerpt by Joe Barlow

STARRING: Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, David Gulpilil DIRECTOR: Nicolas Roeg WRITER: Edward Bond (based on the novel by John Vance Marshall) RELEASED: 1971

"We want water. That's as simple as I can make it. Anybody can understand that." --The Girl, Walkabout

Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout is quite literally a diamond in the rough. It's difficult to name a single other film in which the setting becomes quite so much a part of the tale, or another that is photographed quite so lovingly. Freeze any frame and you have a potential National Geographic cover shot. Every scene is deliberately chosen for its cinematic effect, and there's not a moment in the film which doesn't convey astonishing beauty--visual poetry, if you will--even when the narrative is at its bleakest.

But 'poetry in motion' is too simple a description for the wonders of Walkabout; its success and brilliance stem not just from Roeg's masterful use of the camera, but from the haunting, human characters which inhabit this world. The film, an adaptation of the celebrated novel by John Vance Marshall, follows the struggles of a fourteen year-old girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother (Lucien John, son of director Roeg) as they find themselves stranded in the Australian outback after an excursion with their father ends in tragedy.

An Aborigine boy (David Gulpilil) appears. He appears to be about sixteen years old, and speaks no English. He's on his walkabout--an Aborigine right of manhood in which a boy spends six months living in the wilderness, surviving on his wits and hunting prowess. Realizing that his two new friends are stranded, he travels with them, teaching his companions (via gestures) how to survive in the Outback.

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This review is (c) Copyright 1999 by Joe Barlow, and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the author. All rights reserved.

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