Walkabout

⭐7/10

This is a super unique Australian movie from 1971 in which two white Australian siblings get stranded in the outback and have to find their way back home. They are helpless, but fortunately run into a teenaged Aborigines boy who helps them survive. 

First off, this movie is absolutely gorgeous, one of the prettiest movies I've seen. It is primarily sweeping shots of the outback with beautiful music playing with tons of shots of animals and nature. It is wonderful to look at, both surprising for a movie this old, but also only possible to make in this era because it is so authentic and real. 

This movie has minimal dialogue and even half the dialogue is in the boy's native language that is not captioned and we don't understand it any better than the main characters do. It is unique in its storytelling, and even more unique in its authenticity. I read that the director really had no plan, but went into the outback and just shot whatever he saw. 

This movie also holds nothing back. There are like a hundred scenes of the Aborigines boy killing animals and processing their carcasses, and let's just say this movie wouldn't make it to today's screens. Like animals are for real dying, and bugs are everywhere and he is really eating charred lizards. There are also lots of nude scenes, many of them not sexualized, but there are plenty of somewhat sexualized scenes with the girl who was underage at the time. Not great! Again, I can understand why they were originally put in, and those were different times, but this has no place in modern movies and I felt yucky watching. 

So this movie is up and down, both beautiful and weird, but the biggest problem I had with it was that it was kinda boring. As beautiful as it was, not a lot was happening. The themes were a little clumsy and under explored in my opinion. People really love this movie, and I wanted to like it more, but I think the weird nude images just weirded me out too much and gave me a negative impression. Oh and the little boy is annoying. 

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