Walk about
The film Walkabout produced in 1971 with Edward Bond’s screen play based on James Vance Marshall’s novel follows the story of two siblings left to wonder the Australian desert, outback after their father commits suicide. The teenage sister and young brother are saved as an aboriginal boy subjected to his rites of passage into manhood where he is to serve a term on his own. The film feature themes of symbolism, survival and parallels nature verses civilisation within this essay I am going to explore these attributes.
Walkabout was released on 14th November 1971. Nicolas Jack Roeg who was born in august 15, 1928 in London directed the piece. Roeg was an English Cinematographer and film director. As a director he shared contributions to the visual look of Lawrence of Arabia and Roger Corman’s The Masque of the Red Death, and also co-directed the performance. Later on in his career he fell in as a motive force behind films such as Don’t Look Now and The Man Who Fell To Earth.
Many facets mark the main theme of symbolism and survival, although the first time this is clearly presented is when the female sibling is looked at as a maternal mother figure in light of the boy with dialogue such as ‘you should have filled the bottle with water’ and ‘which way are we going today?’ Although when wondering the dessert the reoccurring motif of animal carcasses seems to represent the consequence the inexperienced children may suffer. The aboriginal boy also shows elements of symbolism when he presents a dead lizard, which to him is food, in turn this shows symbolic reference of life which reoccur throughout the film. Before the young male child meets with the aborigine boy, his imagination parallels an image of camels in the desert to explorers on the beasts, a significant prospective of comparison from history books which seem to influence their minds.
Although nature verses civilisation also shows strong countenances for example free budgies in a tree are highlighted showing that in modern civilized society the birds would normal be captive. The image of an eagle and music giving the scene depth also shows both strength and freedom. Freedom, an aspect not so present in modern, civilized life. A symbolic paralleling of civilization and aborigine ways of life is when a cinematic scene looks into the young man killing a kangaroo for food compared to a civilized butcher cutting up meat. A large comparison and motif throughout the film if the sound of the sibling’s radio, which in one particular scene has news on maths revision. This in context shows how the aborigine life skills and education is put into practice and is more useful within the living world. Memorial sounds tend to occur regularly also within the film, where noises of civilization can be heard in the background showing the scene of how lost the children are.
In conclusion many points are present and much is symbolized. Many themes within the film overlap and bring forward queries of meaning. Although the film was written in a naturalistic format abstract traits are noticeable and it is clear that this film was meant for the audience to question themselves and interpret it with their own manner of approach.
