Talk:Walkabout (film)/Archive 1

It is so nice and clean now
Oh, that is just great. Now the user does not have any distracting information to get in the way. The reader can now find the IMDB link so much more easily and get to most of the same information that was on this page anyway. Bravo! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amorrow (talk • contribs)

I am removing the phrase "wander aimlessly" to from the opening paragraph as the "boy" and the "girl" have the very urgent and real goal of making it back to "civilization" before they die of exposure.--OmarFirestone 18:57, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

To to person who referenced the scene with the woman whose husand owns the plast-of-paris factory: Which version is this scene in? It was my "Garden of Eden" interpretation which was qualified, rightfully, as "one possible metaphor". I'm curious: what might be another? (Having devoted some thought and a few essays to the subject, I'm otherwise coming up empty) --OmarFirestone 13:16, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I have seen this great film in both versions, with and without the encounter in the plaster factory. The boss lady is a Caucasian, the workers are all Aborigines. This is the most puzzling aspect of the film and its history - at least to me. Das Baz 16:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The plaster-of-paris scene is doubly puzzling. In the scene the lady appears to know the native youth. She also speaks to him in English, as if he can speak at least some English, although he fails to reply. He definitely fails to solicit any help from the lady, which in my opinion, leads to questions about his motives towards the boy and girl, in that he may be misleading them. It is therefore very strange that this scene is sometimes cut from the film, does anyone have a directors commentary on this?

82.70.155.252 15:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The boy is from the area. The woman is used to talking to him, and probably doesn't expect a response. He, for his part, has never understood that the English girl and boy are looking for 'civilisation' so he says nothing about them to the woman, or about the woman to them. 83.70.254.4 20:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

And I agree that the Garden of Eden is the only possible metaphor, and some people are just too fond of qualifying. Das Baz 17:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The Vanishing Factory
Anyone who has seen this movie several times knows that sometimes the factory scene is included, sometimes it is not. It is clear that the Boy in Walkabout does not know a word of English, but he is annoyed at the factory lady. By the way, I think she is the factory director rather than the director's wife, but that is just my opinion. Erudil 16:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Interpretations vs. plot
I removed some things from the synopsis that were interpretation not fact. For example it's not made clear why the father has had a mental breakdown or what the aboriginal's dance means. These things are left ambiguous and so don't belong in a synopsis. Cop 633 14:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Likewise I nixed the Garden of Eden reference, just because two people are not ashamed of nudity, doesn't make something a biblical reference - I could easily point to the killings of animals that Roeg makes such a point of showing, something that biblically didn't happen until long after Eden (after Noah and the Ark), so unless there's a source suggesting Roeg intended the scene that way, I personally feel it strays towards WP:NOR to suggest what a film is "supposed to symbolise". Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 11:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

"While the film is easily categorized as critical of "civilization", it casts an equally depressing eye towards primitive life." - It seems like this passage veers rather close to another stab at intepretation. Should there be a seperate section devoted to documented critical and scholarly interpretations of the film?


 * Yes there should. Cop 663 12:30, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Skinny dipping together?
I've seen the movie and I don't remember any scene where the boy and the girl would swim together naked. As far as I remember, it was only the girl who swan naked. The little boy was hunting with the black guy. --Dokam 14:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You are correct, sir. Doctor Sunshine 21:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The closing credits roll, as the girl flashes back to the three of them swimming together Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 11:39, 17 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I had always assumed that the "flashback" during the credits is the girl contemplating how her life would be had she not been married to this very boring Australian chap, ie it's not a flashback as such it's just a day dream based partly upon actual experience. During the film she swims naked but on her own.  She is too uptight / English to want to get it on with the friendly local let alone swim naked with him.  At the end of the film she's thinking that she would have been better off staying with the aborigine and not being such a prude / rejecting his advances.  Obviously in the "flashback" the brother and sister are the same age as earlier in the film (which might suggest that she's thinking of a past event) but:


 * - that's inevitable because the actors are in fact the same age


 * - that's the nature of day dreaming: you think of people as you remember them not as they would now be


 * - the audience would be extremely confused if her day dream showed her brother now 10 years (or whatever) older so it's inevitable that the 3 characters have to appear as they had been during the film


 * - there's nothing to say that the end of the film is in fact more than a few months later


 * The scene during the credits is just too inconsistent with the girl's character during the film for it to have been an actual event. Dr Spam (MD) 15:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Cinematographer or director?
This article describes Roeg as director, while the article Nicolas Roeg says he was cinematographer. I suppose one of the two needs correcting. PJTraill 18:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


 * He was actually both director and cinematographer (and is listed as such in the Nicolas Roeg article). Cop 633 21:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether or not it merits mention that the European release cover shows the "Aborigine on a hill" with "the sister swimming naked" onthe cover, while the North American cover has removed the second image. Won't add it myself, but it may be worth mentioning.

Courting dance?
"When he returns, the aboriginal begins a courting dance around the girl, frightening her into shutting herself up in the house. When she awakes the next morning, her brother shows her that the rejected aboriginal has hanged himself from a tree limb during the night." From my knowledge, the aboriginal boy begins a death dance. Not a courting dance. He tried to court the girl by bringing her to the house where she would be happy, but she wasn't pleased at all. In a following scene - after being asked to fetch water - where he sees the animals being killed, he realises there is too much difference between the English and Aboriginal culture for he and the girl to be together. He has shamed himself by trying to court her and failing. So he begins his death dance - ever wonder why he's painted himself to imitate a skeleton? The idea of this dance is to exhaust himself utterly. He then drapes himself within a tree to die and return to nature. Many inland Aboriginal tribes have a belief that spirits come from trees, and return to trees - this is why in the scene where the Aboriginal women found the father's car, they drape his corpse across a bush. It's a ritual suicide he commits after shaming himself (somewhat like the Japanese concept of seppuku). It isn't a courting dance. Axidos 04:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Married
Is the man at the end definitely her husband? He could just as easily be the boy - the kiss is not too passionate to be a brother-sister kiss. When he says "What?" is it not that he has forgotten while she still remembers? 83.70.254.4 20:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes - it's her husband. Why would she be living with her brother?  What an odd suggestion. Dr Spam (MD) 16:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have watched this scene again since reading the above comment (it's on youtube as walkabout 11). I am sorry but the suggestion that the man is not her husband cannot be a serious one. Dr Spam (MD) 06:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that's an interpretation rather than a fact. I'd always assumed it was the brother and there is nothing to suggest conclusively this is not the case. Betty Logan (talk) 06:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Rewrite
I was dismayed by the obvious misinterpretations and lack of citations in this article, and after trying some fixes and considering the earlier discussions I decided to be bold and go for a full rewrite. Having just watched the film straight through, twice, I believe my synopsis has a minimum of interpretation and can be backed up. I was startled by how differently I remembered it from seeing it when it was released.

I removed some unattributed bits, moved the useful parts to sections better in line with the guidelines from WikiProject Film, and dug up and summarized the most useful/representative reviews and analyses I could find. There are a bunch more print references in Harma's article, along with a deeper discussion of whether or not it's a truly "australian" film, if someone has the time to integrate them.

I removed the text of Housman's poem; I just don't think it belongs here, unless in the context of a much longer and well-cited analysis of the film's nature-vs-city theme. I also removed the following quote for lack of a reference, but it's a strong bit of interpretation coming straight from the director and if anyone can source it I think it absolutely should go back into the article: "Roeg himself has said that the ending scene is about how the sister has gone from being lost in the outback, yet remains lost even when returned to civilisation, and that her time with the Aboriginal boy hadn't helped her." &mdash;Papayoung &#9775; 07:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)