Walkabout

Roeg's second film (made after the massively delayed Performance) is at first sight uncharacteristic: the story of two posh English kids abandoned in the Australian outback and left to fend for themselves when their father commits suicide. In fact, the shimmering light and colour, the conflict of cultures, and the emergence of semi-mystic sexual forces in the desert landscape make this as Roeg-ian a film as The Man Who Fell to Earth or Bad Timing. Only the rather cute casting of Jenny Agutter as an English Rose and some implausibly romantic moments detract.