Walkabout

Wow. What a rich and textured film. Jenny Agutta's (Logan's Run) arc is long and complete. It's a very satisfying film; delineatively shot and Directed by Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now).

Plot: Two English children are stranded in the Australian outback after their father goes a touch bonkers and decides their deaths are the only way forward. To survive they must adapt, or else perish. A local aborigine boy shows them the way.

It's great. The themes and the imagery are so universal, primal, and so unlike contemporary Australian cinema which has become far too parochial (Rabbit Proof Fence et al.). Roeg shoots Agutta the same way he shoots the land – with curiosity and lust. Here, his photography explores sensuality in humanity and in nature. It's that perspective that pervades the film, and enriches it, providing impressionistic sequences like no other in Cult cinema. Based on the book by James Vance Marshall.

Budget: $1,000,000 (Aussie bucks)

Fun Fact: I can't think of any, other than to say that it is well worth watching and if you haven't seen it, you should.

review by Simon Hansen.