Summary of Walkabout, 1970
Dir. Nicholas Roeg

Resources for Teaching Film

ONE * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

1. An Aborigine rock formation. Sound of radio static. Cut to a brick wall. Camera tracks right to reveal a modern urban street scene. We hear authentic Aborigine music—shots of people walking on the street (focus on their legs), or tall buildings. Shot of teenagers all in school dress in classroom—all panting lightly, as if for exercise. Cut to street scene shows little boy in school uniform watching soldiers walk by. In these first seconds we have seen father, daughter, and son. They are the ones who will go into the outback early in the film. This montage continues with more cuts of father and daughter. Then back to the brick wall, camera right, and we see the vast outback. Cu to man taking a break outside an office building. More shots now of the son, daughter, and father. Then a crane shot up to show the family’s apartment building, the black VW parked outside, the water in the distance.
2. Focus on the inside of the house. The wife moves about the kitchen. The husband walks out on to a balcony. He watches the son and daughter in the swimming pool. The father watches them quietly. Then cut to the brick wall a third time. Track right and there is the vast outback—and the little VW. Inside the car are the father and the daughter and the son. They prepare for a picnic. The father is preoccupied reading structural geology work stuff. The girl sets up the picnic blanket and food. The boy plays with his toys. Suddenly the father begins shooting a pistol at them. He misses. The girl grabs her brother and runs. The father keeps shooting. "I have to go now. Must not be late." He takes out the reserve gas tank. The girl looks up from hiding. He has set fire to the car. We hear a shot—then three quick cuts of the man falling down. She runs out, retrieves some of the food, and runs off with the brother.

TWO * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

3. They spend the night alone in a canyon. Everywhere the landscape is rough, rocky, dangerous. Great insert CU’s of Gila monsters, ants, other animals. Sunrise to the second day. The two make their way through the rough terrain.
4. First montage using main theme. Wide shots of the expanse. Animals are shown here and there. The two keep walking. More interaction—the young woman seems not to have panicked. They simply keep moving.
5. Another day passes. More great insert shots of some of the animals of the Outback. Now both are getting overheated. They need water. The boy stops moving. She begins to carry him. They reach an oasis, and the boy moves forward and drinks from a pool. They camp here, wash their clothes, and eat fruit from a tree.

THREE * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

6. Night falls, then the next a.m. They remain at their oasis camp. Later that day, both are napping. Suddenly the boy notices a figure in the distance. It appears to be a man. As they watch, closer shots show it is an Aborigine youth. He his hunting a lizard. He comes upon them and speaks in his native language. He talks to them for awhile and then walks away. They catch up to him. The girl can’t seem to understand that he does not understand English. The water hole has dried up, and they want to drink. Finally, the boy puts his hand to his mouth and pretends to drink. The young man laughs and then cut to him finding water deep in the ground. Then the boy and girl drink through reed-like straws. The two follow the young Aborigine as he walks away.
7. Main theme again. This time the montage shows the passing of time as the three walk together. Several times we notice, as they walk together, that the young woman notices the near nakedness of the young Aborigine.
8. Scene begins with still shots of the young Aborigine. Then we follow him as he hunts a wallaby. He runs one down and stuns it with his spear. Then he clubs it to death. Unfortunately, a rather literal parallel cutting track follows here—he clubs the beast, cut to a butcher cutting up meat in his shop, etc. East meets West, I suppose.

FOUR * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

9. Now the three are resting in the shade while the meat cooks. Again the young woman notices the young Aborigine’s body. Then the boy begins to play with the young Aborigine, and soon the young woman joins in, and suddenly this scene is intercut with the scene of the burned out VW—where a family of Aborigines have discovered the site and are checking everything out. The dead father is set into the trees and his body is beginning to rot.
10. Night scene. The young Aborigine begins to notice the young woman’s body now. Then we get inside the young Aborigine’s mind—as he compares her limbs to the limbs of the tree. Something is up between these two young people. Then the young Aborigine moves off into the night—great shots.
11. A new day. The boy has severe sunburn, and the young Aborigine helps by rubbing on some of the body parts of a partly-cooked wombat. Later, as they walk through a kind of rain forest, the boy tells a story—of course the young Aborigine can’t understand him. But the unusual thing here is the technique—each shot changes as if a page in a book is turned—somewhat forced as a technique.
12. They have found a rocky site. The young Aborigine draws with a chalk-like substance and then throws colored dust on the site. He has decorated the bodies of the other two with Aboriginal drawings.

FIVE * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

13. More heat of the day. Cut to a scientific group in the middle of the Outback. One of them is a beautiful blonde woman. Nearby some of the men are attracted to every move she makes. This is funny—cute—and all about sexual attraction. But it seems out of place.
14. The young woman swims nude in a dark pool of water among the rocks. The theme music comes up again. Shots of her swimming are intercut with shots of the young Aborigine killing one kind of beast or the other. Why this comparison?
15. Night scene. Then a day scene, and suddenly a middle-aged woman is seen walking next to the young Aborigine. She talks to him, and he talks to her—but neither understands. She walks on, after noticing that the young Aborigine is with two other white people. Then the camera follows her, and we can see a house in the distance, within a mile. They were "that close" to civilization.
16. Another strange cut. This time to a scene where Aborigine "craftspersons" are making kitschy items for sell. We see the same woman from the former scene as she walks by them.
17. Back to the main characters. The young Aborigine has found a weather balloon from the meteorology group—seen earlier. When the balloon breaks, the young Aborigine is terrified. They release the trapped balloon with experimental package. It floats aloft. They resume walking.

SIX * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

18. The come out of the rain forest into a clearing. There are buildings nearby. The young woman runs toward them. She thinks she will find other whites. But the buildings are abandoned. She comes back out and looks downcast. She spots three fresh graves in the back.
19. Back inside, the young Aborigine talks to her about something. But she doesn’t understand. What is he trying to say to her? Later, she looks through the possessions left behind by the people. The young Aborigine watches her. The boy is off on his own.
20. Just when we thought we were rid of distractions, we come to the scene where the young Aborigine is trying to wrestle a small wild cow, and he is brushed aside by a truck with two hunters zooming along and picking off wild cows easily. Again, blatant social commentary—downright didactic. White Australians as butchers of the ecosystem.

SEVEN * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

21. The young Aborigine is beginning to act differently around the young woman. He returns and is about to interact with her when we are thrown off with another set of harsh images of butchery and white bones of slaughtered animals, and then suddenly we are launched into a strange interaction—the young Aborigine has dressed himself in full courting array—painted his face white and covered his body with white feathers and begun a courting ritual in order to attract the young woman. He dances around outside the house, but she is frightened. She pulls on her clothes She had been washing), and tries to hide from him. But he continues his special courting dance. The boy comes in after a bit, and the young Aborigine retreats. "What’s he dancing for?" the boys asks. She begins to understand.
22. That night the young Aborigine continues to dance. The boy goes out and holds up a fruit. The dancer ignores him. The boy comes back. She tells him, "We’re going on our own tomorrow." The young Aborigine begins to stagger, but he does not stop dancing. Finally he stops. He is crying.
23. The next morning the young boy and young girl get ready to leave. They wash up. Then the boy takes his sister to see the young Aborigine hanging dead in a tree.

EIGHT * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

24. The two leave and find a road. They find an old mining town. They go down into the town. But when they go down into it, but a man they see in his yard retreats to his house and then is decidedly unfriendly.
25. The boy goes off to play by himself at the mine site. Everywhere there is rusted out machinery.
26. Suddenly this pointless scene cuts to shots of the urban world. Here and there are people dressed in suits. Cut to a concrete wall—and there is a white car pulling up to a house. The young man gets out. Back to the same apartment we saw before. The young woman is now older, and she is married. She is cutting meat for dinner. The husband comes in, holds her in his arms, and as he talks about his promotion, all she can think of is that one happy time in her life—when she was in the swimming hole with the young Aborigine. More cuts at the end of the concrete wall, brick wall, then the canyon rock walls, and back to the swimming hole. The film ends with a short poem read by a narrator.

Music: John Barry (remember: he did Dances With Wolves.)
Screenplay: Edward Bond . . . Dir. Nicholas Roeg . . . Girl: Jenny Agutter
Boy: Lucien John . . . Young Aborigine: David Gumpill

Summary written by Robert E. Yahnke
Copyright, Robert E. Yahnke,  © 2001
Professor, General College, Univ. of Minnesota,  
Reprinted by permission of the author
for educational use only