Walkabout Film Analysis

Ever since Darwin introduced the world to the concept of evolution and the natural selection, humans tend to assume that society and its’ ideals as it currently stands are superior to all the past forms society and its’ ideals have taken throughout history. The belief that throughout time the human race, their general morals and ideas, and society’s structure moves towards perfection is challenged in the movie Walkabout directed by Nicolas Roeg and the book Voices of the First Day written by Robert Lawlor. Both the movie and the book use the aboriginals and their lifestyle to highlight the flaws in modern society, suggesting that society hasn’t improved over time, instead society has moved away from some of the values and practices that had …show more content…
As explained by Lawlor, a major part of the aboriginal initiation is learning to accept death. The aboriginals view death as the last rite of passage, an inevitable that should be accepted and embraced. Today’s society ignores death, people suppress any thoughts about dying and when people find themselves thinking about death, most of their thoughts are influenced heavily by fear. In the movie the father’s suicide compared to the aborigine’s suicide shows the difference in how the two society’s view death. The father’s death was messy and aggressive, as if he viewed death as an escape that he had to forced himself into; the aboriginal boy’s death was peaceful, he considered death as the next step in his life and he willingly accepted it. The taboo surrounding death paired with modern society’s continual attempt to resist it, has created a strong fear of death in modern society. Death is no longer viewed as an inevitability, but as the ultimate …show more content…
The aborigine most likely wouldn’t have committed suicide if he had not been introduced to the boy, the girl, and their way of life as dictated by modern society. Modern civilization, leading to the eradication of the aboriginals isn’t unique to the film, in the book Lawlor describes how through his studies, he has befriended an aborigine who used to feel shameful and embarrassed by his people’s history because of the views modern society impressed upon him. Initially it is easy to overlook this as a non-issue, merely thinking that it is only a matter of time before such an old culture is gone from this world, but the aboriginal society provides prospective, allowing modern civilization to see the flaws in our society. Our beliefs and our culture suppress us in so many ways, never allowing us to be truly independent and