Review:

Story/plot
The plot of the film follows a fourteen year old girl and her little brother who are abandoned in the Australian outback, and try to find their way back to civilization with the help of an aborigine teenage boy on his walkabout journey. The children, who come from a relatively wealthy family, are placed in an environment that is depicted as harsh and unforgiving, and they struggle to adapt to the desert. In contrast, the aborigine boy uses his natural skills in order to find water and hunt food for the siblings. The film focuses on the phenomenon of white Australians inhabiting the desert, which is portrayed as failed attempts to both understand and adapt to the environment regardless of their civility. The idea of the children journeying through the desert in order to return home, parallel to the aborigine boys own walkabout journey, provides contrast and also raises the idea of the noble savage being superior to the civilized man. The overwhelming symbolic weight of the story in the film serves to encourage the audience to consider the persona of the contemporary man as an evil one that goes against our very own nature.

Themes
Walkabout is a film that is suspended by several themes, in which concepts are explored bountifully without the aid of dialogue. The theme of the death of innocence occurs throughout the film, and is explored by several characters and events. More notably is the death of innocence as portrayed through the death of the aborigine boy and through the character of the teenage girl. The aborigine boy is, by and large, an innocent and a man of nature, who eventually kills himself because of his exposure to corruption. His inability to understand social norms, as proposed by the teenage girls rejection of him, leads him to take such drastic measures. During the period before his death, he becomes more of a resource than a character. The girls attitude towards the aborigine boy is one of self-interest, and as she has established safety for herself, easily rejects the aborigine boys advances. On the other hand, at the films end we see the girl has retreated back into the white world, living a cookie cutter life, dreaming of her brief period in the outback. We see, essentially, the she has become a caged bird, her innocence tarnished by the over-bearing ideals of a heavily structure society. We also see the reoccurring theme of communication. The lack of dialogue does not take away from the film; rather, it helps emphasize the interactions between the children and the aborigine boy, as well as how interaction becomes the cohesive within a community. Though the girl struggles to communicate with the aborigine boy, the young boy is able to use hand gestures, and eventually picking up his language, in order to interact with the aborigine. The theme of the noble savage also plays an extremely heavy role in the film. The idea proposed is that the noble savages-though basically nude, shoe-less and dont use knives and forks-are more civilized than the modern man. They are essentially people who live in harmony with the land, use its resources respectfully and as a means of survival, rather than then the white community who harvest the land and nature with economic and capital gain in mind.

Cinematography
The film Walkabout mainly utilizes the vast Australian outback for the background and setting of the story. The sweeping landscapes offer a picturesque and mystical entity, which becomes the enemy and the friend of the two children. The desert itself becomes a character, one who harmonizes with the aboriginal boy. The film keeps us distant from the characters, not closing in on their faces or bodies, and does so in order to maintain a sense of paradise. The film however does focus heavily on insects and lizards and such, no doubt to emphasize how out of the place the children actually are. Their failed attempts to tame the land the picnic blanket, the radio, the little boys toys are ignored by the wildlife that inhabit the land, and live with on the purpose of survival in mind. This

idea of a paradise is continued in the sequence where sections of footage in the film are surrounded by a storybook frame.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack of the film centres around three main styles of music, which all reflect the occurring events and foreshadow future ones. The use of the majestic orchestral music, mainly dominated by string instruments, is often coupled with shots of the regal landscape and scenery of the Australian desert. It serves as a tool for emphasizing the beauty of nature, which ties into the theme of white destruction of the Australian landscape. However, it also assists in depicting the children's change in environment as a positive one, contrasting their "new" grand environment to their previously mundane and restricting roles in society. In a similar way, angelic music is often played when good events occur to the children, for instance when their find the water oasis and fruit tree beside it. The use of the didgeridoo plays on the constant underlying aboriginal culture, bring out aspects of their lifestyle into the "civilized" society of Sydney. The use of percussion music is used to emphasize the mood of a particular scene. The ominous and foreboding use of rushing wind, and also the combination of loud chatter and white noise, is often coupled with negative events in the film, such as the dried up water.

Editing/cuts
The film utilizes many cuts to make comparisons and often create juxtapositions, which are often intensified through the use of cross-cutting. There are several notable examples of this technique. One of the most effective use of editing is the scene contrasting the naked aboriginals around the abandoned car and the two children climbing the tree. The abrupt and intensive alternation between the two occurring phenomenon manages to bring out the contradictory nature of the events. Another notable example of this effective use of editing is the scene in which there are several cuts between the aboriginal boy beating a seemingly dead animal, and a butcher cutting red meat with a knife. This is used to raise questions about which culture or which society is more 'savage'. The cutting successfully emphasizes the idea of aboriginals being respectful towards the living things that they eat, very rarely wounding or cutting the carcass in anyway, and often leaves the animal whole. Meanwhile, the whites of the "civilized" society are depicted to be barbaric in nature as they mechanically chop the meat, exposing the blood of the animal.

The noble savage in Australia

Walkabouts portrayal of the modern, contemporary man is not a positive one; we are encouraged to see him as a being that has been exposed to and consequently corrupted by the evil influences of a structured and civilized society. On the contrary, the aborigines are conceptualized as noble savages; despite their lack of clothing and etiquette, they are seen as superior to the white Australians. The film dwells on the thin line between civility and barbarity, proposing that the noble savages are more civilized than the modern man, as they live in harmony with the land, utilizing resources for survival only, as opposed to viewing the land with economic and capitalistic intentions. In a particular scene, a group of westerners are seen hunting animals in a truck, armed with weapons. The barbaric manner in which they approach the destruction of life horrifies the aborigine boy, who is a hunter himself. There is an immediate comparison; the aborigine boy hunts only just

enough to feed him and the two children, using his own natural skills, and in a respectful approach towards the land and the animals. In contrast, the white man arms himself with guns and creates distance by seating himself in a vehicle, giving himself an unfair advantage, and kills not for survival but for entertainment. The implication is clear, that the label of civility may, on the surface, be decided by social conventions, but in actual fact is decided by a mans morality. In a similar manner, in another scene the film cross-cuts between the aborigine boy hunting and a city butcher cutting up meat. This creates the juxtaposition of civilization and a seemingly barbaric culture; the aborigine does not expose the blood or wound the carcass of the animal in any way, often cooking the animal whole, whilst the white man does so mechanically and without thought. This idea is further emphasized by the shot of the man slicing the gut of an animal, from which large amounts of blood gushes out. In another scene, a white man is exploiting youths in an aboriginal community to mass produce crude plaster statues, where the film critiques one culture as one which approaches resources with self-interest, focusing not on the preservation of the land and minimizing wastage, but rather commerce and monetary gain. Another large comparison, and critical juxtaposition, occurs when the children eventually find a virtually abandoned town, in which garbage and debris cover the land. It is implied that civilized man has taken all of the resources the land could yield, and leaving in his wake is wastage. Once again, white culture is seen under a negative light, a wasteful way of life which neither understands nor respects the environment. It also noted that another large comparison in struck in this setting. The children eventually find a man in the town, who is portrayed to be unsympathetic and uncaring towards the children's state. Rather than immediately offering assistance, the man appears to be oblivious and ignorant to the urgency of the circumstances. This is done to contrast the idea of the civilized man being unwilling to help these children, remaining self-focused (Dont touch that!) and unable to break his routine, whilst an aborigine boy was willing to help two children with whom he shared no verbal communication or cultural similarities, once again juxtaposing two clashing cultures, one of which is more savage than it appears to be.