'Walkabout' (1971) - Film Review

Figure 1 – Walkabout (1971) [Original Poster]

This review analyses Nicolas Roeg’s well known dramatic adventure film Walkabout (1971), explicitly focusing on the subject of Edward Said’s Orientalism and how this is shown throughout the film. Referring to the works Said’s publication ‘Orientalism’ (1978) looking at the term itself, and why it came to be. Along with Sean Murphy’s work entitled ‘'Walkabout' Is the Rarest of Films That Will Change Your Life Again Every Time You Return to It’ (2010) ,Dave Crews writings called ‘Walkabout: Cheat Sheet’ (2016) and Jakes work ‘Walkabout’ (2010)  The review aims to  explain Orientalism, and how this is depicted within the film, using it to help the audiences recognise the problem with Orientalism, and exploring how Roeg attempts to do this.

When a teenage sister and younger brother find themselves stranded in the outback befriend an Aboriginal boy on walkabout – to frame a coming of age story complicated by questions of race, civilisation and sexuality. (Crewe, D. (2016))

Orientalism is a term first by literary critic Edward Said. Said wrote the book entitled ‘Orientalism’ (1978), to highlight the bad representation he felt the West perceived over the East. Orientalism tries to answer the question as to why when thinking of the Middle East, there is a preconceived notion of the people who live there, their beliefs, and how they may act, even though most have not witnessed this first hand.

The fundamental argument of Orientalism is that the way we attain this knowledge is not objective, but the end result of a process that is highly motivated. Specifically Said argues that the way the West, Europe, and the U.S look at the countries and people of the Middle East is through a lens that distorts the actual reality of those places and those people, Said refers to as Orientalism. (Palestine Diary, 2012)

Said defined it as it being the West’s acceptance of “The basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny and so on.” (E. Said (1978) p. 10-11) Said is highlighting the rationalisation, of which European colonialism based itself on a ‘self-serving history, where the East was seen as somewhat inferior to the West, thus in need salvation.

The main part of Orientalism that is shown within the film is the idea of one culture being superior to another, which is shown through many aspects within the film.

The film itself sets itself on a landscape that destroys this idealist concept some perceive “Despite our tendency to romanticize (or our historical obsession to tame) the wilderness, an unblinking assessment reveals an arena where every inch of space is occupied by an unending struggle for the inhabitants — no matter how large or small — to stay alive.” (Murphy, S. (2010)) In doing this Roeg tries to destroy that idea many have of the setting however this could be argued to bring fourth the concept of one culture being much more dangerous and uncivilised over another.

Although the majority of the film is set within one culture, the film uses this to highlight the contrast between the two. " While Walkabout is a story of its three children, its also unmistakably a story about the differences and similarities between their two cultures" (Crewe, D. (2016)) This is shown within both the characters actions and the well though out edited by Roeg. 

Figure 2- Aboriginal boy begins to hunt for his food (1971)

The character that represent one of the cultures is a young Aboriginal teenage boy. He is often used thorough the films as a mean of contrasting the two cultures while also bringing them together and connecting them. This is shown when “The Aborigine prepares his kill before a fire while (simultaneously) the scene is cut with a white-aproned butcher cleaving meat in a kitchen. These skilfully presented touches convey all that needs to be said without pretence or bathos.” (Murphy, S. (2010)) By cutting between two shots of each of the different cultures, although very different visually the tone is the same, the fundamental action of what is happening in both circumstances have the same effect.

However, although presenting both cultures and comparing the two “The film doesn’t present these two cultures as equals, instead according the Aboriginal traditions with a sense of purity absent from ‘civilised’ culture. “(Crewe, D. (2016)) This follows with Said concept of the one culture being seen as inferior to another. 

Figure 3- One culture exploiting another for cheap labour (1971)

This is clearly illustrated when the main children from the film come across a town where the people inhabiting the town are using some of the aboriginals as ultimately slave labour (see fig 3). “The people likely cannot understand him, and his falsely avuncular attitude belies a disregard for the natives.” (Jake, 2010) By using and taking advantage of the aboriginals, the western characters are seeing themselves as superior having power over them, seeing them as uncivilised as to not treat them with respect as they would someone of their culture.

Figure 4- Grown up girl reminiscing and romanticising her distorted depiction of what her life could have been like in that culture (1971)

Although a lot of danger is depicted within the film, Walkabout still undeniably romanticises Indigenous Australian culture with there being a lot of sexual tension between the aboriginal male and the western female, which ultimately ends when she returns back to ‘civilisation’. In bringing away from the aboriginal culture with time passing, the girl is able to create her own idealised romanticised fantasy of what life may have been life if she was to stay out there. “The girl’s conversation with her husband is interrupted with a syrupy reminiscence of her time in the bush, where the three children frolic naked in a waterhole. But the scene is not a memory, but a reconstructed daydream – an idealised, fictionalised memory of something that never occurred. “(Crewe, D. (2016)) By having the audience whiteness one of the characters endure Orientalism, having a culture be imagined as something idealised and distorted, the audience are able to realise the problems that surround that concept.

To conclude Walkabout uses Orientalism to highlight the problems within society, by using different shots to help capture what some deem to be uncivilised when really both are built on the same foundation and construct. In doing this the film, allows audiences to see a juxtaposition between the two cultures but then in turn realise the similarities.

Bibliography

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Bellmore, K. (2011). Not Just for the Boys: The Female Journey in WALKABOUT. Available: https://reelclub.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/not-just-for-the-boys-the-female-journey-in-walkabout/  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Crewe, D. (2016). Available: https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2016/08/11/walkabout-cheat-sheet  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Ebert R. (1997). Walkabout. Available: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-walkabout-1971 Last accessed 16/03/2019.

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Murphy, S. (2010). 'Walkabout' Is the Rarest of Films That Will Change Your Life Again Every Time You Return to It. Available: https://www.popmatters.com/126292-walkabout-2496187055.html  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Palestine Diary. (2012). Edward Said on Orientalism. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVC8EYd_Z_g Last accessed 17/03/2019

Rich, J. (2010). WALKABOUT - #10. Available: http://www.criterionconfessions.com/2010/05/walkabout-10.html  Last accessed 16/03/2019.
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism [Book]. New York: Pantheon Books. Page: 3, 10-11.
Stephens, G. (2009). Confining Nature: Rites of Passage, Eco-Indigenes and the Uses of Meat in Walkabout. Available: http://sensesofcinema.com/2009/towards-an-ecology-of-cinema/walkabout/  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Tv Tropes. (N/A). Film / Walkabout. Available: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Walkabout  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Harvard Illustrations

Figure 1 – Walkabout (1971) [Original Poster] IMDb. (1971). Walkabout (1971). Available: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067959/  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Figure 2- Aboriginal boy begins to hunt for his food (1971) Lincoln, J. (2014). johnlink ranks WALKABOUT (1971). Available: https://johnlinkmovies.com/2014/01/18/johnlink-ranks-walkabout-1971/. Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Figure 3- One culture exploiting another for cheap labour (1971) -Biblioklept. (2018). 40 still frames from Nicolas Roeg’s film Walkabout. Available: https://biblioklept.org/tag/walkabout/  Last accessed 16/03/2019.

Figure 4- Grown up girl reminiscing and romanticising her distorted depiction of what her life could have been like in that culture (1971)- 3:AM Magazine. (2018). the missing links. Available: https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-missing-links-319/  Last accessed 16/03/2019.