Opinion | ‘Walkabout’ is an unexpectedly fitting film for the holiday season

Although Director Nicolas Roeg’s “Walkabout” may lack the festive imagery of more traditional holiday films, its bittersweet narrative of missed connections speaks directly to the empathy that lies at the heart of this season. Photo illustration by DANIEL PEARSON, Photo Editor

The arid, sun-bleached locales of the 1971 Australian classic “Walkabout” are perhaps the furthest thing from the blankets of snow that one usually associates with the holidays. 

And yet, “Walkabout” was the first thing that came to my mind when I was trying to decide what films I wanted to share with my family this Christmas. Although it may lack the festive imagery and schmaltzy sentimentality of more traditional holiday films, its bittersweet narrative of missed connections speaks directly to the empathy that lies at the heart of this season.

In short, “Walkabout” is an attempt to reconcile the nation of Australia with the Aboriginals — or individuals Indigineous to the continent pre-colonization. The film follows two unnamed white schoolchildren — a boy and a girl — as they try to find their way back to civilization after they are stranded in the vast Australian outback. 

Caden McQueen, Opinions Editor

Just as the pair are about to succumb to the elements, they are discovered by an Aboriginal boy out on his “walkabout,” a rite of passage in Aboriginal society where a boy must venture out into the wilderness for months on end in order to spiritually become a man. Seeing no other option, the schoolchildren decide to follow him through the Outback with hopes he will deliver them to safety. 

Despite the film’s defining of “walkabout” as a distinctly Aboriginal term in its opening titles, it is the white girl’s walkabout we follow in the film rather than the Aboriginal boy’s. He and the landscape he inhabits are instead diminished to the role of a picturesque backdrop for the girl’s coming-of-age story to play out on. 

They become, in the words of Ross Gibson’s “Formative Landscapes” article, “sublime and supra-social,” providing the girl with a completely detached, otherworldly environment that she can explore herself in without outside influence.  

Director Nicolas Roeg’s intent is clearly to allow audiences to connect to both the Aboriginal boy and his environment in the same way the girl does. Yet the film’s eurocentric perspective ends up drawing attention to what drove the children apart in the first place: the virtually irreparable damage of colonialism. 

Without a larger focus on the Aboriginal boy’s perspective, any real insight into indigenous Australia is smothered underneath the filmmakers’ unwillingness to divorce their work from the exoticist stylings of traditional colonizer media. 

It is this exclusion that makes “Walkabout” a failure; without the incorporation of the Aboriginal boy’s authentic Australian voice, the film can only serve as yet another heartbreaking testament to the ongoing tragedy of colonialism. 

The unparalleled beauty the film lends to the Australian landscape and its inhabitants only makes it all the more painful; the gorgeous cinematography, unique editing style and the rich sound mix. Most importantly, the fleeting moments of harmony the white schoolchildren and the Aboriginal boy find in the stunning natural features of the Outback allows the  audience a glimpse at short-lived coexistence. 

Thus, “Walkabout” serves as a reminder that the deep wounds left by Australia’s colonial past not only still exist but are just as fresh as they were the day Captain James Cook unjustly claimed the continent for the crown of Great Britain. 

Despite the film’s best attempts, its inability to afford Aboriginal Australia the same empathy that is granted to the white characters that they will not heal. They cannot heal until native title is fully restored. 

“Walkabout” is a painful experience, but it is undeniably one that must be had. The invaluable lesson in the importance of empathy it offers pairs wonderfully with the holiday spirit, and prompts viewers to expand the compassion and desire for connection that is typically relegated to this time of year to all areas of their lives. I love it dearly, and I hope that you will too.