Customer Reviews

Walkabout (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The Blu-ray disc showcased what I consider to be the best features I've ever found such as recent documentaries of the actors who portrayed the film's main characters. The commentary feature by Director Nicholas Roeg (recorded 1996) and Actor Jenny Agutter (recorded 2008) were smoothly edited together to sound as though they were both viewing the film at the same time. The film style common to productions of the late 1960's/early 1970's was a bit of a distraction, but negated by the overall power of the scenery and story. The Walkabout booklet enclosed with the disc is a keeper with strong stills from scenes in the movie and summary written by Paul Ryan.

This movie will capture the mind of the most imaginative romantics, but it will bore the person who wants to have more action/dialog. It is a strange movie and it is not for everyone. There are several bizar insertions which are confusingly disjointed from the rest of the movie. This movie would almost qualify as a documentry on the Outback, and shares many traits with that other movie type. The movie has fabulous imagry of the Australian location shooting.

Nicolas Roeg's 1971 masterpiece transcends time and place. On one level, it's a harrowing adventure of two abandoned kids in the Australian outback. On another, it's a mystical meditation, a tone poem if you will, about the greater world just beyond our so-called modern civilization. It's also a wonderful coming of age drama, a love story and an exploration of innocence lost -- and perhaps regained. There's a mythic sensibility to this enterprise. In places, images remind of a Garden of Eden story, but viewed through desperate adolescence.

Beautiful Jenny Agutter was only 16 when production began. Her little brother was director Roeg's six year-old son Luc. David Gulpilil, an extraordinarily gifted aboriginal actor and dancer was barely 17. This was his first film. His astonishing presence haunts the film -- and the memory -- decades after it's premier.

Beautifully photographed, this was cinematographer Roeg's directorial debut. His first feature film explores startling primeval locations in which no white person had trespassed. Extras include a feature length commentary from Roeg and Agutter, interviews with Jenny Agutter and Luc Roeg, and "Gulpilil - One Red Blood" (2002) an hour-long documentary on the life and career of actor David Gulpilil. There's a booklet with photos featuring an evocative essay by Paul Ryan.

One of the legends of Australian film, this journey into adulthood from an Aboriginal male and an Anglo-"australian female is a work of art

Just received my corrected blu-ray disc from Criterion [odd sound issue well-documented elsewhere that affected the first pressing] (Thanks for the quick turnaround!) Watched it for the first time today, having never seen the film before. I have to say that this movie is odd, right up there with A Boy and His Dog for weirdness. But, it's definitely memorable. The blu-ray presentation, soundscape, and video quality exceeded my expectations for a film that is an older release from Australia. This is definitely a worthy addition to my growing Criterion blu-ray library. It's truly the amazingly loving detail that they put into each blu-ray release that keeps me coming back for more. Wish other companies would show as much care to the packaging and presentation of their classic releases. Remember when DVDs always had a booklet? Criterion sure does! The booklet itself just whets your appetite for the superb visual and aural feast of this movie.

This exceptional example of cinematography was also the world's best look - and possible first look - at the walkabout tradition of Australia's indigenous people called aborigines. It catapulted David Gulpilil to fame, if not fortune, and set the stage for a series of culturally accurate films on Australia and its people.

I'm in England & I just bought a Zone A Blu-ray player from the U.S so that I can play some great films that are locked on Zone A- "Walkabout" was the first. Criterion have remastered the print beautifully; it's much better than the UK Universal DVD I have & the extras are superb. A 'must have' Blu-ray!