'Walkabout' Film Finale.
Australian masterpiece and one of the most visually stunning films ever made it tells the story of a teenage girl and her brother who are stranded in the Australian Outback after their father tries to kill them. Rescued by an Aboriginal boy on a rite of passage (Walkabout) it begins and ends in tragedy. Directed by Nicolas Roeg and with a screenplay by Edward Bond, starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg and David Gulpilil, it was made on a shoestring budget under extreme conditions and released to less than rave reviews. Originally age restricted it was later issued with a parental guidance. The British Film Institute listed it as one of the fifty films everyone should see before they are fourteen, The film finale sees the girl, now an adult, embraced by her husband as he talks of promotion and office politics and her eyes drift away..... The voice over is of A.E. Housman's poem XL from 'A Shropshire Lad' and the music is from John Murray. It has its critics of animal cruelty, swimming scenes and racial issues etc but as one of the comments on Youtube remarks, "It stays with you" and that's art. Couldn't be made today,
Jenny Agutter was awarded an OBE in 2012 for her charitable services.
Loaded by Peter JP Critchley and with thanks.
Poem XL
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows
What are those blue remembered hills
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content
I see it shining plain
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
A.E Housman
