MovieChat Forums > Walkabout (1971) Discussion > How do you interpret the final scene?

How do you interpret the final scene?

posted 10 years ago by Rory_Brandybuck
10 replies | jump to latest

All through the film the girl's time in the outback is portrayed as a horrific experience for her, and she can't wait to get back to civilisation. Yet when we see her years later she is looking back with nostalgia on it as an idyllic, carefree existence. So is she:
(a) looking back at the past through rose-tinted glasses, or
(b) thinking about what might have been if she had accepted the boy's courtship.
I'm not sure, but I'm tending towards (b). What do other people think?

[–] L0GAN5 10 years ago

If we accept that the reading of The Shropshire Lad over the end scene conveys its meaning then those events never actually happened, at least not exactly as portrayed i.e. nostalgia often distorts memories of the past.

[–] wrs6565 10 years ago

Somewhere between A & B, I think. I also suspect that the point of the scenes with her as a married woman in civilization is that her life is now pretty boring, her husband seems to be a bland corporate tool who calls her "doll." So she fantasizes about her time in the wasteland as Eden.

It's a beautifully haunting scene too, not just in how it's shot but also John Barry's music, one of the few times syrupy strings have actually worked really well as movie music.

[–] watcher101 10 years ago

Definitely B. She was thinking of what could have been and facing regrets for the innocent and carefree life they could have had.

[–] Hereafter 10 years ago

One of my all time favorite scenes in Walkabout, her husband is taking and we start to listen to what he is saying then his voice fades beneath the music and the viewer disconnects and becomes part of her day dream. Powerful and well crafted cinema.
I don't think she ever contemplated or regretted not accepting the boy's courtship, that concept was to abstract in the context of the film as they played there roles very alien to each other.
I am sure her comfortable and modern life pales against the rich experience when her life was unpredictable and lost in the Australian landscape and she often recalls these memories as a form of escapism.
Walkabout is rich in "moments" and this would have to be one of the more powerful and poignant sequences.

[–] DaveBowman2001 (518) 7 years ago

Nicely said. I think the film does an interesting comparison of the contrasts of modern life and primitive life, each having their own appeal and own challenges. There are definitely criticisms of Western life with killing more than you can eat, like when they forget to cook the chicken at the end and it goes to waste. The deserted mining town, with the Get off my lawn guy watering his lawn in a desert where water is scarce and taking ownership of everything "do not touch". We also see local labor being exploited making souvenirs for tourists, sport hunters, or "nuisance" animals being killed for eating crops, etc etc. It doesn't come off preachy, but just lays out the contrasts for the viewer to decide. There are certainly benefits and appeals to both ways of living. I also think they come off in a metaphorical way with the main coming of age storyline.

[–] huwdj (4571) 3 years ago

I think more (b). Not so much that it might have changed the course of her life but regret at rejecting him and the experience and perhaps even a touch of guilt?

[–] capuchin (3263) 3 years ago

I think it's all of that. It's a little (a) and a little (b), and thinking back to simpler times / childhood/ an age of innocence... and the movie also has that whole Rousseau vibe running through it like a stick of rock - the juxtaposition of swimming pools against the sea and traditional hunting methods against the use of guns, shots of brick walls, the endless twitter of the transistor radio, questioning of what 'civilisation' means... Is it better? All that 'Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains' stuff...

... so it ties into the overall theme of the film, doesn't it?

[–] huwdj (4571) 3 years ago

I was thinking of it more as a personal regret. At the start she was a very catholic looking school girl and at the end a slightly bored looking housewife who'd perhaps prefer her husband not to just come home and fondle her. In between was the chance not taken for a simpler, innocent experience.

[–] capuchin (3263) 3 years ago

Oh, I think it's definitely that too... but, again, that's connected to the whole theme - being the bored housewife is her own personal 'chains', the trappings of civilisation, what's expected of her. And she's looking back on a moment of potential freedom from all that...

So, yeah, I agree with you.

[–] Wuchak (8829) 3 years ago

It's B, but with a little A -- she was daydreaming about life with her aborigine savior in their 'Garden of Eden,' albeit through rose-tinted glasses. While it's certainly possible, it's unlikely that she'd be satisfied with living in such a primitive way in the Outback with the allure of modern civilization always there to attract her.

We know she wasn't looking back at something that actually happened because there was no such scene depicting all three naked and swimming together. She did swim nude alone, but she wouldn't do so with her brother or the aborigine boy present, at least not yet.