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The Girl: I expect we're the first white people he's seen.
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The Girl: Put your shirt on.
White Boy: He hasn't got his shirt on!
The Girl: He hasn't got a shirt.
White Boy: He can have mine.
The Girl: It wouldn't fit him.
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The Girl: Please try. It's silly to give in now. It can't be much further.
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White Boy: Well, where are we now?
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The Girl: Water. Drink. We want water to drink. You must understand! Anyone can understand that. We want to drink. I can't make it any simpler. Water. To drink. The water hole has dried up. Where do they keep the water?
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The Girl: We're English! English, do you understand? This is Australia, yes? Where is Adelaide?
White Boy: Ask him for water!
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White Boy: I don't suppose it matters which way we go.
The Girl: We'll stay here. Perhaps the water will come back.
White Boy: Where from?
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Description
Nicolas Roeg's mystical masterpiece chronicles the physical, spiritual, and emotional journey of a sister and brother abandoned in the harsh Australian outback. Joining an Aborigine boy on his walkabout-a tribal initiation into manhood-these modern children pass from innocence into experience as they are thrust from the comforts of civilization into the savagery of the natural world.
Amazon.com
Very few films achieve a kind of subliminal greatness with cross-cultural impact, but Walkabout is one of those films--a visual tone poem that functions more as an allegory than a conventionally plotted adventure. Considered a cult favorite for years, Nicolas Roeg's 1971 film--about two British children who are rescued in the Australian outback by a young aborigine--was originally released in the U.S. with an R rating, edited from its European length of 100 minutes. In 1997, the film was fully restored to its director's cut, and in its remastered video and DVD release, it's now wisely unrated (as Roeg had always intended) but still suitable for viewers of all ages. For parents this is a rare opportunity to treat well-supervised children (ages 5 and over) to an adventure that won't insult their intelligence, presenting scenes of frontal nudity and the hunting of animals in a context that invites valuable discussion and introspection. Through exquisite cinematography and a story of subtle human complexity, the film continues to resonate on many thematic and artistic levels. Roeg had always intended it to be a cautionary morality tale, in which the limitations and restrictions of civilization become painfully clear when the two children (played by Jenny Agutter and Roeg's young son, Lucien John) cannot survive without the aborigine's assistance. They become primitives themselves, if only temporarily, while the young aborigine proves ultimately and tragically unable to join the "family" of civilization. With its story of two worlds colliding, Walkabout now seems like a film for the ages, hypnotic and open to several compelling levels of interpretation. In addition to presenting the film in its original 1.77:1 aspect ratio, the Criterion Collection DVD of Walkabout includes a variety of bonus features, including a full-length commentary by Nicolas Roeg and Jenny Agutter, original theatrical trailers, and an essay by critic Roger Ebert. --Jeff Shannon
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