This was an awesome copy, recycled from a public library in Oregon, it came with the complete booklet of notes (a trifle worn, but in very good shape) and the DVD materials in superb condition. Nic Roeg's first feature, very low-budget, shot on location in the Australian Outback; one of his three leads spoke no English but was a superb dancer, the film ended up going to Cannes. They used maybe three cams running at once, single takes were the order of the day, it was amusing to hear how hard it was to set the VW on fire (only one VW was available.) Works as a coming-of-age story for young maiden Jenny Agutter (her debut,) also as a clash of civilizations (English settlers and Australian Aborigine.) Film title comes from an Aborigine tradition where pre-teen native males are forced to trek into the wilderness to become men, leaving childhood behind forever. They are sent out with only a spear to obtain food, and almost no clothing. The two abandoned English kids do the same ritual. Jenny was 16-or-so during filming, playing thirteen. The Eden-like scenes are especially effective, Roeg's producers narrowly escaped an X-rating (or whatever the 1971 equivalent had been) for full nudity. Awesome lighting in the Outback as the days get longer and longer, as the English kids try to find their way home.

The other commentators are all correct, and so are you. There, everybody happy now? I watched this movie in a theater in 1972, when I was 15. I thought it was a masterpiece at the time. No "tone poem" hogwash about it, either. It had Jenny Agutter, naked. (That's all that mattered back then.)

Recently, at age 55, I watched it again and thought it was awful, but I also realized why I thought so highly of it when puberty (the original "hair-raising experience") had set off a carnival in my pants; Roeg seems to have shot the movie from the viewpoint of an adolescent male. The laughable attempt at a "plot" (99% of the film is improvised, according to Roeg) consist of getting Jenny Agutter out of her clothes. Nearly every view of her when she's in a skirt was shot from below (even when she's lying down). I couldn't believe how many beavers seemed to be running around in the outback, if you catch my drift.

For instance, Roeg peppered the movie with shots of tree crotches, taken from above, looking down. What do they look like to YOU? I know, it sounds nuts, but check 'me out. The only way he could have made his intent more obvious would have been if he'd have had someone climb up there and glue some hair on 'em. Then she climbs onto a limb and swings upside down. Guess where Roeg sticks the camera? Anybody else see a theme developing?

After about an hour of this visual foreplay, he cuts from the cast wandering through a verdant, lush palm-lined stream to a group of meteorologists on what looks like the Bonneville salt flats, while a group of swarthy "assistants" cast lustful glances at the lone woman in the scene. Why? There is no earthly rhyme nor reason for them to be in this movie... Unless the shot of a red balloon skittering away is somehow meant to warn you; "Heads up! Nudity coming up!" As Roeg IMMEDIATELY cuts to the opening shot of the legendary "Jenny Agutter skinny-dippin' scene," known and loved by generations of slo-mo fanatics for Roeg's careful camera placement (think "gynecologists' eye view"), but ya gotta be quick about it or you'll miss it and have to rewind for another crack at it ("crack" being the operative word here).

Here's the weird part I never even noticed as a lad, hunkered in that dark theater with my bell-bottoms turning into a pup-tent: Jenny's languid dolphin impersonation scene is intercut with some of the most violent imagery to ever scorch my naked, steaming eyeballs! Animals are actually killed in front of us (kangaroos are speared, and they actually scream and moan) - cut to Jenny's lithe form glistening in the water - a lizard gets a spear through its head - cut back to Jenny performing a stunning breaststroke - kangaroo has its legs hacked off and tossed into a fire - cut to one of those "full frontal" shots that people keep talking about (Roeg snatches a picture, and vice-versa) ...

You get the idea. Yet nobody has mentioned it. Very strange juxtaposition, if you ask me. And why? Absolutely unnecessary (and unintentionally invisible to teenage boys, for some reason).

All I know is that the movie didn't change, I did. My god, how tedious we've both become over time, though. Bet everybody can at least agree on THAT.

I've loved this movie since I saw it in the theater. I've been looking for a good copy for ages. As usual the Criterion Collection did an excellent job.

I've loved this movie since I saw it in the theater. I've been looking for a good copy for ages. As usual the Criterion Collection did an excellent job.

This story about becoming a man in the outback, is fantastic. I'm not trying to down play two young children being left to die in the outback was not part of the story because it is an intricate part of the story, for without the children there is no story. Since the first time I saw this movie I wanted to move to Australia. I had a chance to move there and learn about the culture this young man came from. I understood the ending of movie, finally, as to why the young man killed himself. The thought of losing his family ( they had become his family as he taught them to survive in the outback,) to the white man's world, he could not return to his former life without the young boy and the woman/girl. In reality they where his family even after they returned to civilization. They returned to civilization in body only or should I say she did but wanted to come home to the outback where she grow up during their travels but could not, as society would frown on it. I felt the same after leaving Australia after seven years in the outback.