Product Details

• Actors: Lucien John, David Gulpilil, Jenny Agutter
• Directors: Nicolas Roeg
• Format: Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: May 18, 2010
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00393SG3S
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,558 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Walkabout (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 05/18/2010 Run time: 117 minutes

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful culture clash, with simmering adolescent sexuality, June 5, 2010

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walkabout (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

I saw this soon after it came out, and as an adolescent was utterly mesmerized by the story. With very little dialogue and virtually nothing explained, it was a profound experience of shocking loss, disorientation in a deadly yet beautiful environment, and finding one's way back. Accustomed to the pat formats of hollywood, I had never seen anything like it: little resolution, reflection, or overt lessons. Yet it stimulated a great dialogue with my father, who had insisted that I accompany him to it in the face of my adolescent unwillingness. Though I have not seen it since 1972, its images stuck with me as if in a dream.

Now, nearly 40 years later, I bought it for my daughter, to nurture her interest in anthropology. I am happy to say that she was swept into it in the same way, wondering what it meant and wanting to learn more. What better success could there be for a film experience than that?

The story begins in a normal city in AUstralia. A father takes his children to the outback for a picnic, and without explanation completely loses it, leaving them to fend for themselves in a land so alien that they have no idea how to survive. Trapped in an oasis that dries up without food, they are lucky to be found by a young aborigine, on his "walkabout" - a stay alone in the veldt to test his survival skills - and he brings them to a road. Apparently, in helping them, he violates the conditions of his walkabout, with terrible consequences.

As a visual poem, the film has many sequences of silence or trivial dialogue, a cover for deeper meanings that the viewer must reflect upon later. The girl, Agutter, is shielding her brother from frightening realities, but it is the young brother who is the real focus of the story. He has sudden flashes of insight, at times far more perceptive than his more conventional sister, though at his age he often must act them out rather than articulate them. She keeps him going, but it is his mind and spirit that keep them together and then achieve some communication with the aborigine man child. There is also a youthful sexual tension that appears shocking, like the innumerable brutal contrasts in the film. The tragic outcome, after so much has been experienced, is the most shocking of all, and the most un-hollywood: ironic, muted, and mysterious, as much a feeling as a story. I have never seen a clash and meeting of cultures portrayed with such artistry and intelligence.

Recommended as one of the greatest film experiences I have known. It is a classic. Agutter is luminously beautiful and became a major star from this film. Note: I bought this in Europe, where it cost only $7.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic, May 24, 2010

By 

Reader B "avid reader" (Plymouth Meeting, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Walkabout (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

I had the DVD, and was more then happy to get the Blu-Ray version. If you already have the regular DVD released years earlier, with using an upconversion DVD player, the Criterion Edition adds little in the way of probable added film quality.

The insert material indicates a new high-definition digital transfer, made from the original negative, with dirt, debris, etc. removed. And the soundtrack was remastered. The audio commentary with the film is the same as in the original DVD. The digital transfer was approved by Nicholas Roeg.

But this is a Criterion Edition, so one expects some nice extras, and one is not disappointed. There is an interesting interview with Jenny Agutter, and a separate one with Luc Roeg. But one of the nice added features is an almost hour long feature on the life and career of David Gulpilil. The feature with David Gulpilil is both fascinating and worthwhile. The supplemental material is rather recent.

So for those who love this film, this is the DVD to get. The DVD includes a booklet with some very interesting background information.

Technical note: I did get some freezing and stuttering (audio only) on the Blu-Ray version about half way through the film, but playing the same with the commentary on, no freezing at the same point. I haven't gone back to see if I could duplicate the original glitch.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting film with nature photography worthy of Blu-ray, July 26, 2010

By 

Adam Lenhardt (Albany, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Walkabout (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

Walkabout is a surreal film that walks the line between art house film and nature documentary. It's worth picking up the Blu-ray for the 1080P resolution nature photography of the 1970s Australian Outback, but there's so much more to the film than that. Adapted from James Vance Marshall's novel, the film departs from the source material at several crucial points. The first is the children's method of becoming stranded in the outback; instead of a relatively straight forward plane crash, the film presents a bizarre scenario of a family picnic gone terribly wrong. Fathers committing murder-suicides upon their families was virtually unheard of in 1971, but is unfortunately all too common today. The teenage girl and her barely school-age brother venture out into the wilderness as symbols of the British ruling class, their starched school uniforms a stark contrasts with the wilderness all around them. Jenny Agutter carries the film, since it is from the teenage girl's perspective that we experience the journey. The relationship between her and the aborigine boy is timeless and universal yet fraught with the social divisions and cultural confusion of their experiences. The British schoolgirl in her patronizes the aborigine even as he ensures their survival. The pubescent teenage girl in her finds herself in close corners with a pubescent teenage boy. The sexual undercurrent is understated but obvious. It is beautifully rendered, and ultimately tragic. The tentative, uneasy relationship between the white school girl and the aborigine boy is a metaphor for the relationship between the white colonists and the natives as a whole. And it is the story of childhood's last gasp, and the longing we hold for the freedom we once had when all of our serious choices were ahead of us.