In this assignment I would like each of you to share with the class your feelings and thoughts about Walkabout. You need not be generous or kind if you did not like it or could not relate to it, but you must try to explain why you feel or think about the film the way that you do. Consider, if you will, what the film is about. Is it simply what it seems--a parable about the elegiac possibilities of the Aboriginal life and the "crushed spirits of city dwellers," as the film critic Roger Ebert once wrote? (By the way, Ebert, and others, believe that Walkabout is "one of the best-photographed films ever.") Is it the complex tale of cultural encounter wherein both "native" and "foreign" suffer and learn from the encounter? What does the film say about communication and the necessity for meaning in human interchange? Of course, any film of value must operate on many levels of significance and this is certainly true for Walkabout, the story of which gets more difficult to pin down definitively the more you think about it. Indeed, one must wonder if even the sequence of the story, which we may be inclined to understand as linear, is not timeless, occurring perhaps in the "dreaming" wherein imagined and real, mythic and historical are seamlessly intertwined.
Roger Ebert does offer one very intriguing take on the film that may provoke some reflection. It is worthy of quotation here:
"The movie is not the heartwarming story of how the girl and her brother are lost in the outback and survive because of the knowledge of the resourceful Aborigine [sic]. It is about how all three are still lost at the end of the film--more lost than before because now they are lost inside themselves instead of merely adrift in the world...The film suggests that all of us are the captives of environment and programming: there is a wide range of experiment and experience that remains forever invisible to us, because it falls in a spectrum we simply cannot see."
So, let's see what you think and feel about this work that was characterized in the voiceover for the trailer as "just about the most different film you'll ever see." In your comments if you are led down the path of identifying resonances of the film with other works we have read, please elaborate so that we might see how many others were similarly struck.
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It seems that film is definitely a criticism of civilization however the only way the film does this is through its portrayal of the so called civilized people. The dad goes insane because of the pressures of his life and kills himself and tries to kill his children and when they children finally make it to the village the first guy the seek out for help blows them off. This is a rather ineffective argument because of course there are crazy and mean people in civilized society just like there must be in aboriginal society and just as there are plenty of decent kind people in civilized society. The film does a better job in its portrayal of aboriginal culture and the encounter between the two especially with the connection that develops between the young white kid and the aboriginal teenager how he is able to communicate, pick up the language, and develop a connection with someone who is so different from him. The girl is the opposite which is comically portrayed when she asks for water saying "Water!! anyone can understand that. Water!!" The film paints a pessimistic picture of the future between these two cultures with the suicide at the end and the girl's clear regret about the path she has taken.
I thought this film was pretty interesting, although kind of slow at parts. It was also fairly strange, but necessarily so, because of the nature of the topic. Any movie which depicts another culture, their skills, personalities, and rituals, will inevitably seem strange to those of us viewing from an entirely different perspective. I find the aboriginal’s behavior and choices to be odd at the end of the film. Despite the difference in cultures, or perhaps because of it, I would have thought that he would have realized, as the girl did, that their relationship could never work out. If they were unable to communicate with one another, I don’t know what his plan was for when they were together, how they would function in a household. It was striking at the end of the film, when the brother and sister found the mining settlement, how the man they talked to reacted to them as compared with the aboriginal. The man turned them away, gave them no food, and no water, even though they had been in the outback for days or maybe even longer. This so-called civilized man seemed rather savage and uncouth compared to the aboriginal, who was kind and helpful and stayed with them throughout their outback journey, enabling them to survive.
This film does not merely criticize civilization, but also highlights the failures of communication between different cultures and how people cannot understand ideas/concepts that fall outside of their experiences.
The ridiculous “civilized” picnic in the middle of the outback with fancy fruit and platters and radio music displayed how disconnected civilization is from its environment. The girl clings to the niceties of civilization even when she knows they are lost in the Outback; she tells her brother to keep his shirt clean and to preserve the quality of his clothing. Then when she meets the Aboriginal, her salvation, she does not fully appreciate him and just focuses on his lack of clothing and the flies buzzing around him – she focuses on his foreignness instead of trying to make connections and find similarities. They are both the same age and in the same situation, trying to survive in the Outback, yet she fails to make those connections.
At times I thought the girl was going to connect with the Aboriginal. She lets down her barriers while laughing and playing in the tree - for one moment communication is complete because they understand each other through their body language - through laughing and smiling. Another moment of potential understanding and acceptance occurs when the Aboriginal uses the English word for water and the girl tries to use the Aboriginal word for water, they are attempting to meet each other halfway, but then this small step gets obliterated when the girl rejects his sexual advances.
Overall, I was very dissatisfied with how the movie ended; I did not like how nothing changed. After the Aboriginal hanged himself, the girl and boy just moved on and rejoined society, not adapting their lifestyles or beliefs as a result of their journey. The girl ends up just like her mother, still remembering the “paradise” of her time spent free from the bonds of civilization, but she does not act on her experiences and does not attempt to make her life better or different. This is a comment on our society – we know that we are disconnected from our environment and do not communicate well with “others,” but we do not try to fix these problems, we just dream about an ideal life.
Nicholas Roeg’s film Walkabout is valuable because it highlights the often-overlooked assumptions that Westerners carry into any encounter with the other. Scenes like the “Everyone understands water” encounter demonstrate how unquestioningly Westerners accept their own culture as correct. The girl does not even consider that the Aboriginal would not understand so basic a concept as the word “water;” Western culture is so embedded in her thinking that she is no longer aware of the limitations of her language. In the swimming hole scene, Roeg demonstrates how, when some of these assumptions (like the need for clothing) are abandoned, genuine understanding can be reached; self and other can come together in spite of their differences. Yet Roeg is fair in his portrayal; he does not idealistically claim that the West and Aboriginals can achieve a complete understanding of each other. As the girl and Aboriginal’s relationship becomes increasingly sexual, the girl rejects the Aboriginal and abandons any hope of further understanding. One of Westerners core assumptions, Roeg shows, is that “primitive” peoples are inherently different from the “civilized” West. To partner with an Aboriginal is not only unacceptable but unthinkable. Roeg does a thorough job of portraying Western assumptions throughout Walkabout; this is what gives the film much of its meaning.
Yet in spite of this, some aspects of Walkabout were disappointing. Roeg seemed to concentrate too much on his filmmaking at the expense of his characters. As we discussed after the movie, the children’s reaction to their father’s death was not exactly typical of children in that situation. I would be willing to overlook this (since the father’s suicide is primarily a device for getting the children lost in the Outback), but this same trend continues throughout the film. The children demonstrate very little emotion at the Aboriginal’s death; their actions don’t seem to reflect that they owe the man their very survival. I’m not arguing that this made the characters unbelievable; I just think that it would have added to the film to see more of how the characters reacted mentally to their situation. I agree with Ebert that the film was excellently photographed; I just feel that Roeg relied too heavily on his photography and what he could “show” his audience rather than on developing the characters personal struggles. I think that this would have added another, valuable dimension to the film.
As Roger Ebert asserted, Walkabout was undoubtedly a very well photographed film, with spectacular cinematography and captivating imagery that perfectly accented the wholly surrealist feel of Roeg's work. However, I felt that the movie suffered from a plot that was at best difficult to follow, and at worst both outlandish and incoherent. On the whole, though, Walkabout managed to capture my attention very well and certainly fulfilled its purpose in provoking a critical analysis of western civilization's interactions with the savage other.
Walkabout can be interpreted as a bitterly pessimistic, and at times apocalyptic, take on the facade of civilization to which modern man subscribes. (Apocalyptic imagery - for example, the boy's frolic through the fields of rusted mining equipment towards the close of the movie - calls to mind Walkabout's visual and thematic relation to a genre of classic explorations of otherness, including Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Conrad's Heart of Darkness.) At the same time, it is important to recognize the existence of two sides to the story - the Aborigine boy who accompanies the two Australian children carries with him his own preconceptions of culture and society, and here as always the clash between self and other is experienced equally by each party.
But Walkabout is not just concerned with the problem of civilization versus aboriginal; in fact, an entirely valid interpretation of the film could center on the development and budding sexuality of the unnamed girl, and to a somewhat lesser extent her Aborigine counterpart. Here, too, contrast and conflict between disparate entities obviously plays a significant role, albeit in an entirely different sense than the self-otherness problem experienced by civilized and savage. And once more, Roeg relies heavily on imagery to implicitly convey his messages.
I am grateful for these initial reflections as they indicate a level of resonance that I thought might be difficult considering the age and late 60s early 70s cultural context of the film's making. I thought it was especially courageous of Roeg, who I agree dwelled more on photography than story in places to the detriment of narrative coherence, to make no effort to translate the words of the Aboriginal and to keep the identities of everyone anonymous. The increase in mystery and confusion brought by this choice has the effect of disorientation for the viewer, which I think, draws us deeper into the story and compels us to try to make sense of what is going on in a away that we can comprehend. And, we must not forget that, much like Chatwin's Songlines, Walkabout is a story. Whether it is real or true is a matter worthy of argument and debate.
I sympathize with Hannah's disappointment with the ending, but I would urge us to give some thought to the odd, identical circularity of this narrative in which child becomes mother to the woman. It is reminiscent of Aboriginal dreaming which is distinctly non-linear and which incorporates real and imagined in equal amounts. Is it possible that the entire film is a filmic depiction of the young woman's dream? Of, her own dreaming of her own Walkabout?
The film Walkabout is interesting and thought-provoking, if somewhat confusing. It is both a criticism of civilization and a film about the encounter with otherness.
The film portrays civilization as a type of slavery, or more accurately an addiction, that a person, once exposed, can never escape. Civilization constrains people, preventing them from obtaining the freedom of nomadic or Aboriginal life. Even once a civilized person experiences true freedom, they still inevitably return to the drudgery of civilized society. This idea is clearly shown in the behavior of the girl who, even while living a carefree existence in the Outback with the Aboriginal, still largely clings to civilized behaviors. Although, as we see at the end, she longs for the freedom of the Outback, she never even considers the idea of not returning to civilization. She is not happy in civilization, and at least some part of her wishes that she had remained in the Outback, yet she is addicted to the empty promises of civilization and to a way of life where happiness is only a dream, always out of reach.
It is interesting to note that, based on a comparison between the girl and her little brother, the addiction to civilization seems to grow stronger with age.
The film is not only a criticism of civilization, but also a portrayal of the encounter with otherness. The girl and the Aboriginal are different and cannot come to truly understand each other, although some communication takes place through body language. Clearly cultural differences are very different to reconcile and tragedy can result, as it does in this film when the Aboriginal hangs himself. However, what I find most interesting is how Walkabout portrays this encounter exactly the opposite of its representation in common Western prejudices. Westerners tend to look at this sort of cultural encounter as one in which the civilized society accepts the burden of charitably bestowing the benefits of civilization upon the savages. In Walkabout, the flow of benefit is reversed. The Aboriginal boy helps the girl and her brother to survive and, even if they latter reject it, shows them the freedom of nomadic life. In return, the girl unintentionally destroys the Aboriginal. Clearly, the civilized children have benefited from this encounter, while the Aboriginal has not.
(note: when I wrote this, I was feeling particularly dissatisfied with civilized life)
Although the film, Walkabout, did not particularly resonate with me because I have rarely been in a situation where I had to interact with a culture that was in such opposition to mine, it did accurately portray the difficulties that accompany the meeting of two cultures with a different language and entirely different rituals. I understood the general outline of the film, in that the young woman and man are attempting to cross their cultural barriers in order to begin to understand each other; however, the scenes that were symbolic in nature, in particular when the Aboriginals were making the sculptures, were at times difficult to understand. I do not think that I was able to accurately relate each of these scenes to a criticism that Roeg had of civilization. Another part that was difficult for me to understand was the suicide of the Aboriginal man who had just completed his walkabout. Although he may have desired the woman and believed in some part of him that they could cross the cultural divide and become a family, he should have realized that since they had no method of communication and few shared customs, this would desire would never be realized. This ending was dissatisfying for someone who believed that somehow the young woman would be able to realize that perhaps there are elements of both civilization and the savage cultures that are important to have in life. Although the young woman obviously misses her days in the desert, she does not seem to have a grasp on the benefits to a civilized culture, one in which she did not have to worry about food and safety on a daily basis.
The filmmaker does a brilliant job of using the cut aways in the movie to express his viewpoints. Throughout the movie, there are flashes of nature both in the outback and in our own civilized world. When the clips are of civilization, they usually critique some aspect of civilized living as opposed to the Aboriginal life. The flashes of nature also work in the same way. When the lost children first come to accept the Aboriginal, the nature shots are vivid and lively. In contrast, flashes of death and rotting often accompany scenes where civilization is being portrayed.
The title, "Walkabout" is very appropriate for this work. Both the young man and teenage girl encounter something that they are not used to. Without the help and guidance of parental figures, the two must mature and find ways to deal with their situations in order to survive. Both overcome the struggles in the Outback with the help of each other and both are permanently changed from this experience. Besides this cultural tradition, the title may also suggest something more about the encounter of the other. Both sects meet; however, neither is able to completely understand the other. They tend to "walkabout" the differences between them and only interact so much as to meet and satisfy basic needs. Once these are fufilled, if they are at all, the two separate themselves and never fully embody the other.
A clear criticism of civilization, "Walkabout" is a complicated and difficult to follow movie. The disconnect between the girl and the aboriginal is painfully obvious during most parts of the movie. In a few scenes, such as the scene in the tree, the girl allows herself to forget civilized formalities and manners, and enjoy her time with her brother and the aboriginal. When the girl first tries to talk to the aboriginal, her efforts are totally wasted. It is not until her younger brother understands that he needs to show the motions of what he wants that the aboriginal understands. Throughout their travels through the Outback, the girl never attempts to communicate directly with the aboriginal, but simply asks her brother, who as easily adapted to the aboriginal's language. The ending emphasizes the continuous lack of understanding with the aboriginal's suicide. It is completely unknown why he killed himself, and no attempt is made to understand. The brother and sister simply return to civilization, but the girl cannot forget what happened, even though she does not understand. This strange and unique movie leaves more questions than answers at the end, which was probably Roeg's intention.
I think the movie effectively portrayed the contrast between civilization and nature, but I was disappointed that it did not conclude in a way that suggested they were reconcilable. The death of the native boy and the girl’s relative indifference portrays a rather bleak picture for the coexistence of natural or “savage” life and civilization. The fact that she still dreams about the days back when she was “free” does nothing to alleviate this gloom, since it just augments the sorrow one feels that she is unable to change her ways (and civilization’s in general) to complement the existence she experienced in the Australian outback. I even would go so far as to question whether the scene in the water that she daydreams about actually happened. She never really comes to terms with her position relative to the aboriginal sexually, and a carefree instance of swimming nude would seem to suggest that she had. Rather, I think this vision is an expression of an inner longing for some ideal she wishes she had attained while she had the chance, but that may have been impossible due to her origins in civilizations and the constraints she grew up with. All along she carries the radio, though it serves no real purpose, and this symbolizes the constraints of society. Only after the boy’s death does it get left behind. This may have been a subtle sign that she sees the folly of these civilizational constraints and that only after it is too late does she realize that she should have just let go of her past.
In response to the discussion about the photography aspects of the film, I appreciated the cutaways, in that they helped me better grasp the intent of the director in what he was trying to convey about civilization and nature in particular. If it wasn’t for the contrasts between brick walls and birds flying freely (for example), the message that civilization is too angular and constraining to be natural may have partially escaped me.
Walkabout definitely represents a “different” type of film. The parts that stood out for me were the images of seemingly random creatures of the outback. I think that the “randomness” of these images adds to their purpose to entrance the viewer and make him or her admire the beauty and mystery of nature. I also liked the parallels between the two ways of life, such as the jeep and the stampeding bulls. These parallels serve to show how people from different cultures attempt to use their own background knowledge to make sense of new objects and ideas. Another level of attempt to understand “otherness” is evidenced by the way that the Aborigine doesn’t understand the concept of “water” until the little boy makes a physical motion describing it. Because they found common ground, they were able to more easily understand what the other meant. So, I guess this film revealed to me the attempts at understanding “otherness” as opposed to how natural life is more desirable than sedentary life.
I believe that Ebert’s point on the movie provides an even better summary of the meaning within the movie. Even more so than “just about the most different film you’ll ever see”. Becoming lost inside a misunderstanding becomes a recurring motif in the movie from the father’s death to the very end of the movie. It seems that misunderstanding starts with the father, although we never truly can understand his problem, and results in his suicide. This death shakes the brother and sister until they become lost as well in understanding as their connection to the “civilized” world they live in has been shattered. In comes the Aborigine who helps the pair survive the journey through the Outback, and fulfills the role of guardian. While still young, all three of the companions begin to understand each other and create their own understanding of what they really want. This want is not blinded by the difference that exists between their cultures, but remains as a simple type of coercion and assisting each other in their respective journeys. Until the daughter becomes so caught up in trying to get back to her original life, all of them coexist peacefully and cooperatively. When this happens, both cultures believe they have found what they were looking for: one the return to a normal life, the other an end to a journey of self discovery. Because these two do not coincide with each other, the understanding breaks between them. With the loss of this, the Aborigine takes his life resulting from his own disconnection from the world. The Aborigine has the better fate it seems though as the daughter after this sever from her understanding becomes lost like her father. She assumes the same lifestyle as her father and the other whites and is troubled by the memories of what she once had. The movie has become a representation of the failures of people to understand each other and ultimately themselves.
Alan Yanchak
The film Walkabout, although loaded with artistic excess which only the 70s could produce, conveys many existential truths about human identity and understanding of self and others.
Though I would agree with the first suggestion of what the film is about, that is, it demonstrates the ‘freedom’ that aboriginal life provided from the pre-established and often formulaic constraints of city-dwelling culture, to say that this is the only symbolic truth conveyed would be to sell the film short. It also tells the experience of an encounter between ‘foreign’ and ‘native’, and much like our course to date, it relates the corrosive effect of the infusion of Western culture into “primitive” native environments. It goes further than many of our previous readings, however, in its emphasis upon the effect which the native has on the Westerner. In this particular movie, both the native and the Westerner suffer and learn as a result of their encounter.
The film also provides an interesting commentary on the nature of communication and meaning. This commentary is demonstrated most effectively in the exchange during which the British children are trying to find a mutual understanding of the concept of water after first encountering the aboriginal. Although an understanding is eventually reached, there is some initial tension, after which the girl, frustrated at the lack of understanding, cries out somewhat foolishly, “but you must understand water, everyone understands water!” This frustration highlights the problem of two cultures reaching a mutual understanding, especially two cultures which appear to be so diametrically opposed. As discussed in class, despite the undeniable reality of a universal human nature, and therefore human reason, reason does not always convey understanding. In fact, circumstances surrounding the evolution of a particular people often make it seem as if they are a species unto themselves when compared to what we Westerners might call more “mainstream” cultural groups. After many generations these differences may be, in large part, overcome,—as one might claim is the case with Native Americans—yet at first contact they appear insurmountable.
I would suggest that the most prophetic analysis of this film, however, comes from Roger Ebert. His suggestion that the film is about the loss that all three of the main characters encounter despite a return to civilization is rather insightful. I would, however, modify his suggestion to exclude the young boy, at least partially, from this particular analysis. Although he undeniably experiences some loss and realization—as seen in his discussion of his father’s intentionally shooting himself—at such a young age he is not able to fully experience the emotional development and loss felt by his sister and the aboriginal. In addition, any loss that he does feel, while not trivial, would tend to diminish over time, since he experienced it at such a young age.
Ebert’s insight into ‘loss’ as a thematic element is particularly important to this movie. He puts his finger on something when he discusses the characters being “lost inside themselves instead of merely adrift in the world.” One can accept being physically or geographically lost, however irritating it may be, because one still possesses a strong hold over one’s self, one’s identity. When one becomes lost to oneself, it is vastly more difficult. The aborigine’s committing suicide after the failure of his courtship ritual is, on one level, no different than a modern Westerner committing suicide—each encounters some seemingly insurmountable difficulty that he cannot seem to overcome, and as the world he knows and lives in crumbles, he can no longer cope. It is at that point that suicide becomes truly painless, to paraphrase the M*A*S*H theme. When one’s circumstances change in such a way as to completely alter one’s life as one knows it, it is exceedingly difficult to cope, and one who is unable to do so may simply cease to function in any sense of completeness, or else even end his life. The aborigine, having ‘laid it all on the line’, has nothing to go back to, which is why, ultimately, he ends his life, or what is left of it. For the girl and her brother, they are able to return to the civilization from whence they came. Although it has drastically changed for them as well, they still have an opportunity to continue some semblance of their former lives.
So, after sifting through everything else in the film—or perhaps as a result of it—there is profound existential truth to be discovered.
Although work caused me to miss the ending of Walkabout, I was able to read a summary on Wikipedia that told of the Aborigine boy's strange dance and subsequent death; however, the bare summary held no indication of the reason or events leading up such an act.
The Aborginine's death certainly did not come about as a result of miscommunication, it would seem. The young brother opened that door well before. On the other hand, it wasn't simply that the Aborigine had fallen madly in love and couldn't live without his lover, in some sort of disturbing Romeo and Juliet mockery. Rather, in a time of the boy's rite of passage, the Aborigine helped bring the girl and brother to the edge of their modern world, sharing himself in their culture as they shared in his walkabout, the centerpiece of his life. Having given and taken and been changed for his experience, the dismay that led to his suicide came from the rejection of what he had offered: himself, his help, and his friendship. Across a divide of language and culture, such a emotional wound is devastating.
Is Walkabout explicit in its meaning? Hardly. Too many scenes wander, showcasing in obvious contrast the flaws of the modern civilization next to the raw natural world of the Outback. One could easily consider such a success, in terms of sheer visual imagery, but in regards to traditional plot and substance, it takes a thoughtful and engaged mind to unravel the purpose of Walkabout.
In general I enjoyed Walkabout although I thought it moved slowly at times. The editing and switching from the current scene to another separate yet symbolic scene made it confusing at times but added depth through symbolism and provoked thoughts about the negative or barbaric aspects of the “civilized” world. The relationship between the young boy and the Aboriginal compared to the relationship between the girl and the Aboriginal is especially interesting. The younger boy is much more accepting. He tries to learn to communicate by learning some hand signals as well as some of the language itself, rather than rejecting it as inferior to his own. He also takes off his shirt saying that the other boy didn’t wear one. It is as if as a younger member of a culture he is not completely set in his ways, there remains a part of him that can be changed and that can adapt to new ways of life. The girl, on the other hand, is willing to go along with the Aboriginal, but only when necessary and to a much lesser extent. She uses his abilities and knowledge to survive, yet rejects him when she returns to her element. Only in her flashbacks at the end of the film do we see any hint that she recognizes that her ways may not all be the best ways of life. I found the scene in which the Aboriginal performed the dance to be the most interesting. It showed that no matter how close people of two cultures may be, the influence of each culture remains ingrained deeply in the person, and there are always parts of another culture that can never be fully accepted. The dance crossed the line set by the girl. She could live with the Aboriginal while he was helping her, but she was not ready to accept him fully. Their differences were still too great. The mutual experiences were not enough to overcome those differences. I found this meeting and rejection of the “other” to be the most interesting aspect of the movie.
I personally enjoyed the movie a lot. What drove the movie was the cinematography; the wide shots of the Australian outback and short clips of wildlife. I thought the film struck a note of wanderlust in me. I think there was something to be said about the nomadic way of life. There is a connection with nature on display in the film. In my view, people in civilized society tend to think that their way of life is more ‘advanced’ than the aboriginal one; it is, technologically speaking. But there are many stark contrasts displayed in the film. For example, the girl left the world of straight lines and basic shapes (i.e. a square room) for the natural contours of the landscape. There are also more colors on display in the outback than in the city. I think it is this unappreciated complexity of nature the filmmakers were playing to in the way they presented the scenes.
But I think in general the film just gave a look at the natural state of humanity. I thought the flashback at the end of the movie represented a sort of ‘Garden of Eden.’ Perhaps the human paradise is not a mythological place but instead a different time period, one where people took their entire livelihood into their own hands, from what they ate to where they slept. It suggests simplicity and impulse as the natural order of things. On par with this was the scene when the man was trying to get the woman’s attention in the middle of the desert (with the weather balloons). The way he failed miserably and the other man stood up and started licking her fingers without saying a word suggests that out in the wild there is no room for civilization; that basic instincts such as sex are what drive people outside the ‘box’ of society. It is outside this box where the theoretical holds no weight. I also didn’t really think any of the scenes were particularly out of place. I found a lot of meaning in the film, but it also struck a bit of a personal note. I’m not really sure whether I followed the intended meaning of the film or if I filled in the blanks, but I didn’t think any scene was out of place. That being said, I also read the book a long time ago (even though I only vaguely recall it).
The film worked for me, but that was because I brought a lot of my own philosophical views and personal opinions with me. I liked the way the death didn’t overly glorify the death of the aboriginal, because I think that death is just as much a part of life as eating or sleeping. One last thought, I thought the film was relatively neutral on its opinion of civilization until the very end, when it showed the girl preferring the naturalness of her life with the aboriginal over the married life in an urban center.
As a film, I very much enjoyed watching “Walkabout;” the filming of the movie was very well done and extremely picturesque. The plot, while at times difficult to follow, had significant depth and meaning, and overall made for an excellent film. “Walkabout” is clearly making a statement on the complex encounter between two vastly different cultures.
However, “Walkabout” does not take the same approach to this encounter as many fictional films do. As Ebert says, it is not a feel-good film about a brother and sister who survive only with the help of the highly capable aboriginal who in the meantime falls in love with the girl and the two end up happy together. This film takes a more pessimistic view, almost insinuating that a successful encounter between cultures is impossible.
In my personal opinion, I believe the girl, who possible represents “civilization” is responsible for the unsuccessful encounter. From the beginning one can tell that she cannot understand not only the aboriginal’s way of life, but also the idea of different cultures in general. She is completely baffled as to why he doesn’t know what she means when she is telling the boy that she is thirsty. As the movie goes on, she makes no attempt to understand him, almost as if she thinks it is impossible, and instead relies on her younger brother for communication. This all culminates near the end of the film when the aboriginal is engaging in some kind of pre-mating ritual. It is clear that she understands what is happening, but she refuses to acknowledge it, either in a good way or a bad way. This gives the message the cultures can never successfully interact because at least one side will be unwilling to accept or try to comprehend the differences, although they may be able to, as is evidenced by the young boy.
I really enjoyed Walkabout. The use of cut scenes may have broken the plot line, but it definitely added to the thematic guts of the film. I thought that one of the cool parts about the film was how the director was so unafraid to hit viewers with strong emotional impacts. True, at times, this focus detracts from character development, but, on the whole, it adds to the poignency of the movie's themes.
I thought that a big part of the movie was the suggestion that a closer to nature, nomadic life was much more interesting, wholesome, and indeed more sexy than a detached, modernized life.
The cut scene to the finicky foreign scientists in the desert, in which one man repeatedly tries to look creepily down a woman's shirt, contrasted with the immediately following scene of the girl swimming gracefully in the pond, develops a contrast between the ideas of sexuality in both cultures. In the "modern" culture, sexuality is artificial and empty, but in the nomadic world, it is something rooted in nature; human beauty is developed only on the canvas of the boundless, natural landscape.
Ultimitely, the girl wishes she had chosen genuine, wholesome nature over the artificial, empty social framework of the modern world - as we see in her longing daydream in the final scene of the movie.
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