Walkabout (1971)

Arty flick about survival in the Outback and coming-of-age

A teenage girl (Jenny Agutter) and her little brother get stuck in the Outback, but receive assistance by an aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil) on a ‘walkabout,’ a rite of passage into manhood.

Directed by Nicolas Roeg, “Walkabout” (1971) is an arty cult flick that plays like a Terrence Malick film and no doubt influenced his style (since it came out two years before Malick’s feature film debut with “Badlands”). Agutter was only 16 during shooting while her character is 14, according to Roeg.

The themes about the beauty of nature vs. man-made desecration and the clash of the primitive with the ‘cultured’ & the problems of communication thereof were probably fresh at the time but are obvious and old hat now. "Dances With Wolves" tackled the same issues almost 20 years later. Still, this is an artistic piece with loads of awesome nature footage, plus it’s interesting to see Agutter so young in the bush. It’s a must if you appreciate movies like “Picnic at Hanging Rock” (1975) or anything by Terrence Malick.

David Gulpilil went on to appear in such notable flicks as “Crocodile Dundee” (1986) and “Australia” (2008).

The film runs 1 hour, 40 minutes, and was shot in Sydney, Finders mountain range, the red desert surrounding Alice Springs and (supposedly) areas never traveled by Caucasians up to that point.

GRADE: B