Very well executed

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

There's probably a poignant film in the footage they shot. Maybe they were hitting the bong a little too hard in the editing room. Because the result is a choppy, disjointed, self-indulgent mess. But that's not why I'm reviewing this movie. Since the clowns who run this site eliminated the discussion boards I'll register here my amusement over the self-described geniuses, aesthetes and other self- important reviewers who were mortally offended by the nudity like it was some kind of kiddie p-rn crime. A marginally interesting film to see once. Too shallow to be memorable.

In 1971, I was walking down Hollywood Blvd one lazy afternoon, and came upon a theater marque that was advertising "Walkabout". I went in the outside lobby area to view the movie poster, glanced at my watch, and decided to kill a couple of hours watching this movie. At the time, I was barely old enough to get in as it was rated R. I remember leaving the theater thinking that Jenny Agutter was an attractive sexy young girl. She was 18 at the time of filming, but was playing a 16 year old HS student in the film. However, After seeing the movie I had no doubt in my mind leaving the theater that the reason for making this movie was exploiting the nudity of the teenage girl playing the lead. I was so young and dumb, I was completely oblivious to the fact that I had just watched scores of beautiful animals being slaughtered for the sake of a movie.Then fast forward 46 years, and I get curious to see the film again, because I read all the compliments here about it, and I wanted to see why.I certainly have no problems with nudity, but this director used it in poor taste, especially considering the implied age of the the lead actress.On my second viewing via DVD, I especially didn't like the super close ups of the breasts of the Aborigines women as they were inspecting the wreckage of a burned out automobile near the beginning. It reminded me of a soft core porn movie with absolutely no reason other than to exploit the fact that the tribeswomen were topless. The closeups were full screen mammary glands, which instantly placed this movie far from the "masterpiece" level.There are only two spots where Jenny Agutter should have been naked. Once when the Aborigines boy is stalking her because he discovers her dressing, finally loses control of himself, and goes into a tribal dance to woo her. The second time her nudity is relevant is the very last flashback shot in the movie, when all three are seen sun bathing nude, having fun, and swimming. The rest of Agutter's nude scenes were gratuitous, and would never pass censorship standards today.However, what really angers me about this movie is the animal abuse. Wild animals indigenous to Australia (including Kangaroos) were beaten, clubbed, stabbed, speared, shot and butchered. You will see no caption anywhere in the credits saying: "No animals were harmed in this motion picture". It is just horrific. I was so sick after viewing the DVD, I stomped it into pieces, and threw it in the trash. I understand that this is a movie about a "walkabout", meaning survival and killing in order to live, however, the senseless real life slaughtering of all of these animals for the purpose of making this or 'any' film is downright disgraceful. If you love animals, PASS ON THIS MOVIE.

In the year of 1971, there were two good films about the modern human's conduct toward animals, nature, and themselves. These films are Walkabout & Wake in Fright, and both of them are visually stunning. However, Nicolas Roeg attempted in somehow to compare between the archaic humans and the moderns, which it was perfectly done. But I was kind of lost in what Roeg was trying to say, he didn't make me loathe the contemporary civilization, nor sense the privilege of living in the wild. In Wake in Fright, Kotcheff was obvious in what he was trying to say, without any comparison with another kind. But in Walkabout, I did not get the message behind the story of the black boy. Nevertheless, Walkabout was terrific on many levels.

Walkabout takes a premise that brims with condescending racism and Oscar-bait melodrama: a pair of white Australians are lost in the wilderness, but saved by a silent and resourceful Aboriginal, who teaches them the ways of nature and leads the young woman to a sexual awakening. It doesn't so much escape from these trappings as sweep them aside by making the whole narrative elliptical and bizarre, more reminiscent of a heat-drenched dream than a realist narrative.Roeg's visual gifts are the main attraction here, from the dissonantly- edited montages to the brutal close-ups of natural life. Walkabout is not a film that asks you to sit back and admire the beauty of a natural vista, but rather one that rubs your nose in the violent struggle for survival that is the wilderness. Jenny Agutter manages to wrench the viewer's attention away from the bizarre visuals, with both her beauty and her strangely detached air. David Guilpilil's Aborigine does certainly fall into the "noble savage" archetype, but there are some moments in the film which suggest that this too is an illusion.Walkabout is a film that at first seems instantly dated, but then suddenly becomes too strange to fit in comfortably with any time period or movement. For fans of experimental cinema, this is a must-see.