If Nicolas Winding Refn strove to make a transcendent film with Valhalla Rising but fell short with the end product, the same can't be said for Nicolas Roeg's incredible 1971 movie, Walkabout. Roeg - already a respected cinematographer before putting on his directorial shoes - demonstrates his incredible talent for crafting rich, symbolic and multi-layered films which would become his trademark for much of his career. Having already wowed audiences and critics alike with his spectacularly inventive film Performance (co-directed with Donald Cammell), Roeg turned his attention to the Australian outback for the tale of two schoolchildren who become stranded in the wilderness. Jenny Agutter and Luc Roeg star as the siblings whose picnic in the outback with their father takes a turn for the worse when he starts shooting at them with his gun, before turning it on himself. After coming across a watering hole, a young Aboriginal boy arrives and teaches them how to survive. Far more than simply a story of survival in a hostile environment, Walkabout belies its minimalist set-up (the film was shot from a 14-page screenplay) and serves up one glorious motif after another, with a carefully constructed mise en scene which uses beautiful and powerful imagery to juxtapose themes and ideas with a near-hallucinatory quality. It is a visual treat which reaches the level of pure parable.
