Two young brother and sister are abandoned Western in the bush after the suicide of their father. Somehow surviving in the hostile desert, they meet a young aboriginal right in "walkabout", this wandering initiation ritual.
For his second film after the experimental Performance , Nicolas Roeg realized may be his masterpiece after this immense Walkabout. Adapted from a novel by James Van Marshall, the film from a simple premise expresses themes of great depth and express a range of complex and contradictory feelings the only formal power of his divinely inspired filmmaker.
After a short introduction to urban, so we are immediately plunged into the Australian bush with our two young heroes quickly delivered to them even after the tragic death of their father. Roeg typing method of entry with its hollow exchanges between father and children, the prevailing malaise will lead to tragedy is not feeling in words, looks and fleeing from the brutal strangeness rebound shot with a confusing installation. 
's sister (Jenny Agutter) and brother (Luc Roeg's young son Nicolas Roeg) which we will never know the names then began a long wandering in the vast Australian outback to them at any point in their education as hostile to the city unprepared for such a trial. Sun, drought, panorama to the infinite horizon in the form of open prison nothing seems to be spared the unfortunate especially as Roeg films the bush as if they were on another planet. Hypnotic score by John Barry accompanies therefore a symphony of sensations expressed by the assembly (with many inserts on the strangest animal that is accompanying the march of the characters), providing color photography supernatural and the natural scenery and the sky Roeg achieving that gives as much beauty as threat framed under this outsized and we never saw before nor since then. 
The hello happens then a young aboriginal (David Gulpill) Full walkabout, the tribal rite of passage where young people must undertake a wandering in the wilderness in communion with nature and seeking them Going back even transfigured and adult. Then evades the rules of any conventional narrative completely captivated in its illustration of the rapprochement between the two civilizations with a sense of peace and brotherhood. 
's younger brother so puny a departure becomes tough to contact This aboriginal teaching him how to move, feed and protect themselves in this country with accomplice and a palpable imitation of them (the young boy eventually be constantly shirtless and sporting the ritual painting of his friend, that Aboriginal wakes up one morning and turns on the radio the most natural). It's the same with Jennifer Agutter who gradually loses her inhibitions (see this long swim naked in a creek), while the aboriginal slowly allows himself to win by a certain desire for her, both of which are magnified by the camera which Roeg craves the contact of their bodies young and supple. 
The subject could also suggest a naturalistic staging and skinned, it is not. Roeg uses all the tricks available inherited from its past as an editor and cinematographer to make the experience constantly surprising and sensitive. Thus we find an assembly in the form of associations of ideas when David Gulpill completes the beast he hunted with a butcher inserts reproducing the gesture as if to signify its content universal for man to bring refreshments. 
At another point when the boy decides to tell a tale of his knowledge in Aboriginal (who does not understand word) again short image page that will accompany the turn sequence. The film was barely 14 pages of script and gave free rein to events, the vagaries of nature and improv team and that liberty is felt in the vast breath that is all. 
This happiness is fleeting and yet the differences will eventually cause an insurmountable gap. In the book, the aboriginal die having contracted through contact with an unknown illness whites of his body. Roeg give a more poetic this evil by making the mutual incomprehension and influence of whites instruments of the fall of the aboriginal carefree. After showing us the communion of man with his environment in the beautiful scenes of hunting, there is a massacre and for the free form of various animals by a group of hunter. 
While aboriginal was based in nature and did not disturb the natural course of life (killing for food) the reverse of this sequence shows men killing for fun and leaving the carcasses to the vultures . Roeg a game on the speed of image editing and jerky shows the appearance of their intrusive and harmful act by breaking the contemplative tone going far. The other point is abortive romance between Jennifer Agutter and aboriginal where ambiguity is placed between a real rejection and misunderstanding because a ritual dance of love will be seen as a threat. 
The conclusion echoes the opening and our heroine returned to a more urban line seems to express regret for the adventure and sense of freedom at that time, her eyes melting into the memory of an afternoon bathing. The poem A Shropshire accompanying the latest images voiceover reinforces the emotional images by highlighting their wonderfully melancholy. 
Into My Heart an Air that Kills
From yon far country blows: What are
Those Blue Remembered Hills, turns
What, What are Those farms?
That Is The land of lost content, I see it
shining plain, The happy highways
Where I Went And
cannot come again.
One of the jewels of English cinema, what is called a masterpiece .
Released on DVD in region 2 French Collection Agnès B and for the most wealthy and English there is a magnificent edition in zone 1 Critérion
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