Rating: 
Summary: Intricate Beauty
Review: For some reasons I had reservations about seeing this film when I first heard about it; maybe because what I heard and the advertising I saw didn't begin to hint at its depth. Ostensibly its the story of two WASPs who get stranded in the Australian outback and meet an aborigine boy who helps them to surive their journey back to civilization. Most noticeably, for me, the movie criticizes the spiritual emptiness of civilized society and lets the viewer glimpse at some of uncharted territory's secret beauty. The movie works fine on this level. But its brilliance lies in how many different levels it does work, and its subtlety.It is a tragic story of two people who fail to communicate. The blindess of the girl (presented in quite a harsh light, and a symbolic big slap in the face to whitey now that I rethink it) despite huge language and cultural differences is inept or unwilling to understand the aborigine boy's perspective. Indeed she is deeply rooted in Anglo-Saxon values -- only the young boy, her companion, is able to break down the barrier and communicate simple ideas. There are points in the film that expose sexual tension as brilliantly and as subtley as I have ever seen. It is vastly important that the boy is not dramatized or stylized in any way, he seems really to have been picked out of the outback and cast directly in the movie. His behavior should seem at least somewhat bewildering to the audience, it was to me, particularly in the haunting mating dance scene. The girl rejects him out of a lack of understanding and fear, and he sheds tears of failure. Was sexual consumation a part of his walkabout or did he fall deeply for this girl. What are the cues to suggest the latter? I'd have to watch the movie again. Walkabout is delicate and complex but doesn't spoil itself by becoming overambitious. There are many, many internal psychological and emotional aspects of the two children that remain rightfully unexplored. Suffice to say being shot at by your dad and stranded in the wilderness might create some wrenching immediate -- nevermind longterm -- consequences. The film could easily have veered off into myriad branches and lost track of itself. Roeg decides to focus on particular elements and does so meticulously and with grace. And for the film's obvious disdain for civilized society, it doesn't necessarily suggest that the boy has an easier or more satisfying life. It merely presents a different angle -- though that angle is shot in breathtaking, but unsentimental, beauty. There is no sap in this film; the score is moving but does not grab forcefully at one's heartstrings. The shots of the outback are gorgeous, but they do not imply any false notions of peace in nature. And for these very reasons, the film, I would imagine, would be great at exposing both beauty and the harsh face of reality to kids despite all the complexity that wouldn't be understood.
Rating:
Summary: Another world just out of reach
Review: Civilization is mad, or drives people mad is the opening proposition in Roegs 1971 Walkabout, and yet modern man is ill equipped to live outside of it. The script has everything a cinematagrapher would want. An interesting story but not one that needs to be elaborated upon or explained. Early on an incident occurs in the outback and the rest of the movie traces two childrens journey back to civilization. The story relies not on dialogue but on visual data almost exclusively. There have been few movies that have been so perfectly filmed(Lawrence of Arabia is one that comes to mind, on which Roeg served as cinematographer). The beauty of Roegs images of the Australian wild and also the beauty of the young actress Jenny Agutter alone make this a very memorable film but also with that camera Roeg is making a very provocative study of human nature in two distinct elements. And the competence with which he does so puts the film in the very highest class.
This film was made in Australia during the decade that countries cinema went through a boom period. But also during a time when international cinema was exploring similar topics. The most similar film to Walkabout I can think of is Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. I think the two would compliment each other very well if viewed in tandem.
Many Australian films of the 70's deal with nature with an element of mysticism added in for good measure, usually mysticism derived from Aboriginal customs, and this film does touch on that topic as the children are led back to civilization by an Aborigine but the film does not dabble in the mystic or become lost in its allure as some of the other Australian films did, it simply acknowledges that there are ways of perceiving reality other than western ones. That theme of getting back to nature is appealing to me anyway but Roegs treatment of it is never sentimental or romantic and that too is appealing. In fact what really gives the film its special depth and appeal is that the children still not completely indoctrinated into civilizations ways attempt to adapt to their primal surroundings but find they cannot, they are saved only because they are found by an Aboriginal child who provides them with food and guides them back to the world they came from but the odyssey has been a strikingly filmed one. Roegs camera has been very effective in finding the most poignant images to convey how differently the world is perceived when in nature and when in civilization. An intriguing study by one of the worlds greatest cinematographers using very modern devices to penetrate to the heart of one of civilized mans oldest attractions, the return to nature.
Rating:
Summary: on how life could be
Review: Oh, yeah. I mean, have you -seen- this movie? That's all you can say afterwards: oh, yeah. Watch this movie. I want my kids to watch this movie (when I have kids). It's a sort of subliminal criticism of everything that's wrong w/our species and how unnecessary that wrongness is. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think it makes for a nice companion piece w/'Fight Club', 'The Magic Christian', and other cinematic indictments of social ills, although 'Walkabout' is much more down-to-earth in its approach than most films of that sort.
Rating:
Summary: Walkabout - inspires wanderlust
Review: What a beautiful piece of cinema. If, like myself, you find yourself leaving most movies wondering why it was made at all, this film is a must! A beautifully photographed masterpiece, which, through a number of brilliant associative links, and a languid pace (not slow), will leave you breathless and wanting more. It is not often any more that I feel changed after a film experience, but Walkabaout inspired a sense in me of wanting to leave the city, however briefly, for a moment, and find the beauty of the natural world again. You will definitely think about life differently after seeing this. A perfect film I believe.
Rating:
Summary: Culture clash
Review: This visually stunning 1971 movie anticipates many of today's main social and environmental topics.At its core, Walkabout is about cultural dominance: the capacity of European culture to dominate both nature and other peoples. Central to this dominance - as the film indicates - are discipline (the girl's fortitude in confronting the outback), conformity to rules (her rote recitation and dress code), hierarchy (unquestioned obedience, even to a deranged father), subjugation of nature (wild animal slaughter), private property (the station in the outback, the despoiled mine), white privilege (the aborigine is useful and nothing more), but most of all, dominance requires replacement of instinct with institutions and nature with technology. Older viewers will recognize counter-cultural themes of the 1960's. Nicholas Roeg has organized these ideas in interesting ways that keep eyes glued to the screen. However, there is a real need to pay attention to the visual imagery which in Walkabout amounts to a dominant text, with the rather sparse dialogue acting as a subtext. Or put another way, in Walkabout Roeg is making a movie, not writing a play. Thus the opening sequence of imagery indicates reasons for the father's derangement and suicide, while crotch shots of the tree indicate the mating potential of boy and girl, a tension that is otherwise hard to convey since the aborigine boy speaks no English. Roeg's wise refusal to sentimentalize his characters gives the movie much of its strength. Instead, the main characters are treated in straightforward, non-judgemental fashion. Nevertheless, as other reviewers point out, the movie does make a statement. Namely, that the girl comes to regret her return to 'civilization', failing to realize at the time the natural paradise she had found on her walkabout. This rejection amounts to a telling commentary on the price the dominant culture has exacted from us in its demand for well-ordered 'progress'. While I agree with the spirit of the point, I think Roeg has idealized the contrast. After all, swimming, fishing, and roaming, look good from the standpoint of the closeted office in the big city. Yet millions of rural people to whom such simple pleasures are in some semblance available, leave those surroundings for the excitement only a big city can provide. In that sense, the girl's regret at movie's end can be taken as a coming to terms with the problems of modern European culture, rather than a return-to-nature as their oversimplified solution. Anyway, however you might choose to cut it, the movie is certainly worth a look see.
Rating: 
Summary: Just not a movie that really does anything for me.
Review: This movie doesn't do much of anything for me. It seems disjointed and hard to understand but does have some good spots. Some may like the Outback scenery, it's too heat blasted for me. I did like various bits of the scenery and of the story but the viewer has to sit through what I guess is supposed to be an art film, too many disjointed bits. Jenny Agutter's swimming hole scene seemed like an excuse for nudity, it did nothing for the story line unlike the dream sequence at the end where all three ramblers swim nude. If that was meant to give a sense of freedom from the stresses of the modern day world it did a much better job. As for sticking to the book, I haven't read it but I'm not surprised that so little of the story is used, that is so common in movie making.
Rating:
Summary: A controversial masterpiece
Review: All great works of filmdom are controversial because they demand more than mere attendence. I guess like any great work one gets it or one doesn't. From some reviewers I guess having read the book makes it very diffcult to get into the movie. That's unfortunate because it is worth the viewing again and again. From the cinematography to the acting it is a seemless piece of genius which I will take years to fathom and fully understand. Several people reported serious problems with the dvd itself, either with sound distortion or faulty tracking etc. [....] Someone referred to the movie as a story of Eden lost. I guess that sums it up in a few words. I think it is the roll of the viewer to find Eden revisited. It is a symbolic view of life and the clash of two diverse cultures as experienced by youth, innocence both imprinted by the reality of their respective cutures. Answers are not always there in black and white but they are there. I hope all viewers will give this film a chance. The rewards are enormous if not attained at the first viewing.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Unlike the Book
Review: This was a very confusing and inaccurate movie adaption of the book "Walkabout". I read the book for 7th grade English, and it is very beautiful and moving. It gives information about Australian plantlife and about the Aboriginals. Sadly, the movie is very different, and it is very untrue to the book. Some examples of the mistakes: 1. In the book, the kids are from South Carolina, but in the movie, they are from Australia. 2. In the book, they are in a plane crash. (In the movie, the father tries to kill the kids, burns the car, and then shoots himself.) 3.The girl is supposed to be 13 and the boy is supposed to be 8. In the movie, the boy acts like he's 3!!! 4.Although I can see why they would do this, the boy isn't supposed to be wearing a loincloth. He is supposed to be naked!!! And that's just in the first 15 minutes! So if you really want to know the story of Walkabout, read the book, don't watch the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Moody, pessimistic and surreal -- with much food for thought
Review: Originally released in 1971, this film is characterized by great cinematography of the Australian outback and the rather strange story of a lost English teenage girl and her little brother who are helped to survive by a 16-year old Australian Aboriginal boy on his "walkabout", a coming-of-age survival ritual. The girl, played by Jenny Agutter, is steeped in the ways of civilization and always distrustful of the aboriginal boy, played by David Gulpilil. The younger boy, played by Luc Roeg, is the son of the director, Nicolas Roeg, and does a fine job of bridging the gap between the two older teenagers as he learns some basic hunting skills and finds ways to communicate with the older boy. The story is a little too artsy for my taste and raises just too many unanswered questions. Why did the children's father drive them out on the desert and start shooting at them? Why did he commit suicide? Why were there some strange scenes about scientists and a weather balloon? Why did the girl never cease her upper class manners even when faced with starvation and fatigue? Even though there are scenes showing the children washing their flannel school uniforms, how did they keep their clothes in such good condition? And why was the film so horribly pessimistic? There's food for thought here though between the ways of life of the materialistic city dweller, which is contrasted by the natural way of the world. However, neither of these ways of life comes out the winner, especially because there is no understanding between them. No one is spared the director's harsh camera lens, which focuses a lot on the animals. We get the feeling survival means destroying other living things. And it is the same with humans. The film is moody, pessimistic and surreal - not my favorite kind of movie. Its message is hazy and unfocussed. And yet its haunting quality will linger with me for a long time. I can't say I enjoyed this video. Rather I was disturbed by it. And I would have liked more clarity. I do recommend it though for film buffs and art lovers. But be prepared for a confusing film with no easy answers.
Rating:
Summary: What was this about?
Review: Dumb, dumb, dumb. Walkabout made no sense at all. Very few lines were said, half of which seemed to be in another language and half of the rest in screaming so loud that it couldn't be understood. The little annoying boy could never be understood at all, and the chick seemed to be that same way a lot of the time. Then, that stupid native guy came along and brought a bunch of naked tribe members along. That made no sense. Next came half an hour of pointlessness. For half an hour, the chick skinny-dipped, the native Australian guy went hunting, and the little annoying boy was a pain. And another stupid thing- why did they have a weather baloon launch? It made no sense with a weather balloon being launched in the middle of a movie about people surviving in the Australian outback with some native wearing a thong. Oh- why did they show so many closeups of that guy's thong? With all that put together, I think this movie was about the stupidest thing I have ever seen.
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