Movie Review: Walkabout (1971)

Unusual movie that will have you wondering about the essence of things

WalkaboutGirl: 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?

Believe me, this low-budget, early 1970s subtle cause-oriented art film is unlike any you will ever see. Unique in so many ways: a) for painting an unromanticized, existential-angst picture of white Australia, b) for showing the connection/disconnection between a colonizing civilization and the indigenous culture displaced by that civilization, and c) for plumbing the elemental depths of how man and woman survive in nature. If I had to pick a genre for the film, I’d call it a combination of environmentalist and native peoples’ epic, say, Jeremiah Johnson meets Dances with Wolves—to the accompaniment of Albert Camus reading his book, The Stranger. Continue reading