The title of "Walkabout" is about a "rite de passage" of Aboriginals. To become a man an Aboriginal boy had to survive on his own in the wilderness for some time.
In "Walkabout" such a boy meets a teenage girl and her little brother, who has got lost in the Australian wilderness. They move on together.
The teenage girl and her brother depend on the Aboriginal boy for their survival. The Aboriginal boy depends on the girl with respect to his sexual desires, so the film could develop into an arthouse form of "The blue lagoon" (1980, Randal Kleiser).
This is however not the case. In the first place because the girl has no romantic interest in the boy. In the second place because the emphasis of the fllm is much more on cultural differences and surviving in a beautiful but als brutal nature than on romance. A comparison with "Dersu Uzala" (1975, Akira Kurosawa) is much more obvious.
Nicolas Roeg began his career as cinematographer. "Walkabout" was his debut film as a director. Also his next film "Don't look now" (1973) was of a high quality. Thereafter his oeuvre became more uneven, with sometimes a pleasant outlier, such as "The witches" (1990).
In "Walkabout" such a boy meets a teenage girl and her little brother, who has got lost in the Australian wilderness. They move on together.
The teenage girl and her brother depend on the Aboriginal boy for their survival. The Aboriginal boy depends on the girl with respect to his sexual desires, so the film could develop into an arthouse form of "The blue lagoon" (1980, Randal Kleiser).
This is however not the case. In the first place because the girl has no romantic interest in the boy. In the second place because the emphasis of the fllm is much more on cultural differences and surviving in a beautiful but als brutal nature than on romance. A comparison with "Dersu Uzala" (1975, Akira Kurosawa) is much more obvious.
Nicolas Roeg began his career as cinematographer. "Walkabout" was his debut film as a director. Also his next film "Don't look now" (1973) was of a high quality. Thereafter his oeuvre became more uneven, with sometimes a pleasant outlier, such as "The witches" (1990).