Director and cinematographer Nicholas Roeg uses the desolate and treacherous landscape of the Australian Outback as a backdrop for Walkabout, a film about two British children who depend on an Aborigine boy for survival after their father abandons them in the desert. I feel like people will initially read this film as some sort of commentary on colonialism, but while that discussion exists, it seems like more of a story of survival and communication. Roeg, who I know only from his film adaptation of The Witches, uses some jarring cross-cutting to highlight the carnal sexuality and the savage, bestial pleasures of being alive. Ultimately, the girl is offered a choice between “civility” and the life of the Aborigines, and while she chooses the former we are made privy to her regret through a memory montage Roeg tags on the end.
