Tracks
(2013)
A young woman’s journey of self-discovery across the
Outback. It’s a description that could be aptly applied to Walkabout, but it also fits this oft attempted – but hitherto
unsuccessfully, can you imagine the Julia Roberts version without shuddering? –
adaptation of Robyn Davidson’s novel. Tracks
is a very different bactrian to Nicolas Roeg’s classic rites of passage
tale, and takes a literal, methodical approach to its trek. Surprisingly, this staunch
linearity (how else would one depict a quest, one might ask), so typical of the
biographical movie, is not a drawback; John Curran’s film unfolds measuredly,
slowly weaving its spell as it encourages us to embrace the barren beauty of Davidson’s
expedition. And in Mia Wasikowska he has found a naturally sympathetic lead,
inviting empathy with the sometimes-difficult protagonist.
Davidson was compelled by a nomadic yearning to embark on a 1,
700 mile trek from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean. No one thought she could it, and tried to
dissuade her, but as she says at the start, there are two kind of nomads; those
at home everywhere and those at home nowhere, and she is the latter. Davidson
just wants to get away from people, and her plan involves travelling the route
with a quartet of camels and her faithful hound Diggity. Her fitful attempts to
get started take up a portion of the opening passage,as she gets fleeced by a
disreputable camel farmer who doesn’t make good on his promise to pay her in
the animals. When finally she sets off, it looks initially as if director John
Curran and screenwriter Marion Nelson have misstepped. Robyn’s journey looks as
if it will be entirely defined by her monthly meetings with National Geographic
photographer Rick Smolan (Adam Driver, fast becoming ubiquitous, but nothing
like as ubiquitous as the ubiquitous James Franco; luckily, and surprisingly,
he doesn’t show up), assigned to record the foot-first feat. This serves to
more than establish her frosty façade, giving the haplessly well-meaning fellow
continued short shrift, but it seems as if they are missing the point of what
she is doing.
Not to fear, as once Curran really gets underway, and Robyn encounters an Aborigine elder who leads
her across their sacred ground (women are not allowed unaccompanied), we see a
different, more accepting side and with it the picture hits its groove. When
she sets out into the vastest stretch of desert, where Rick has very decently
laid a trail of water cans lest she perish, the picture even allows itself to
slip into an unfussily meditative gear. Robyn is (literally) unfettered – in
one scene she has her own Jenny Agutter bathing moment - and enters her own altered
state of abandon amid the desolation. Her most eventful encounters – an attack
by bull camels, her camels making off without her one morning, the horrible
fate that befalls Diggity – provide some dramatic meat but Curran is mainly content
to allow the picture to be what it is, to meander when it needs to and not push
it along or pep it up. I enjoyed his two previous pictures, The Painted Veil and Stone – both with Edward Norton – very
much, and this might exceed either.
We reach the point where, rather than wishing Robyn would
spend time with those she encounters, we want her to leave them as soon as
possible so she can be free again. For all its great untamed expanse, the
desert is a place of (mostly) safety and comfort. So when a crowd of noisy
reporters sets upon her, desperate to interview “The Camel Lady”, the distress of one who has spent so long in solitary
contemplation is palpable. Curran is too smart to attempt a dissection of what
goes on under Robyn’s lid; his trick is that he enables us to empathise with
her doing what she does rather than overtly explaining it.
That said, there is an undercurrent of cod-psychology in the
unnecessary flashbacks. They are a bit eggy, leading us by the hand (do we
really need the fateful departure of her childhood hound as a foreshadowing of
the incredibly upsetting demise of her current pooch), when it might be more satisfying
to allow us the benefit of speculating as to her drive (the unfortunate effect
of the flashbacks is that they suggest she does nothing but think about the
loss of her mother, and going to live with her aunt; there’s clearly much more
backstory as we discover when she happens upon a kindly sun-beaten farming
couple, that isn’t directly to do with those events). The picture is better at
making us conscious that the adverse consequences that come with her
strong-willed decisions, not out of overt criticism but because to illustrate
that to do what she wants to do she must also face what she really doesn’t, be
it having her male camel castrated, angrily beating him after he runs off,
shooting the male bulls or having to put down Diggity.
Wasikowska is outstanding in the lead, and it’s with her solo
that we spend the majority of the picture (with an accompanying menagerie, of
course). At first Robyn’s voiceover announces itself in an off-puttingly over-written
manner, a mouthful of words, but that in itself works in fostering a gradual
appreciation of her. If we aren’t
invited into Robyn’s inner world, Wasikowska makes those things that bring her
peace and validation more than clear.
Driver is lends strong support as the likeable goof towards whom Robyn
gradually thaws. Roly Mintuma’s Eddie, persuasively benign and ever chatty to
an uncomprehending Robyn, also makes a strong impression (this might be the
most upbeat section of the picture). Then there’s Diggety, charmingly played by
Special Agent Gibbs; there’s a lovely uplifting scene in which Robyn, searching
for her compass, is unable find her way back to the camel train; she instructs
“Diggity, go home!” and the faithful
hound leads her back to them.
Mandy Walker, who lensed Australia
for Baz Lurhmann is given the chance here to allow the desert images to linger
and sing. It’s a gorgeously shot film, with vistas both familiar (a flickering mirage)
and uncanny (a motorcyclist arriving out of the darkness like an astronaut
stepping onto the Moon; he may as well be from a dream world to Robyn, who
turns over disinterested in his prattle and goes back to sleep). Garth
Stevenson’s percussive score is also a perfect match, gently pushing the
picture forward but holding back on the urge to get overly inspirational.
Biographical adaptations often go astray through being over
earnest or trying to cram in too much exposition. Curran has done neither and the
result is captivating picture, one that gently musters reflection on our lives
and what we do with them, how we see others and ourselves, by letting Robyn’s obscurely
motivated trek speak for itself. As she says, “I believe when you’ve been stuck for too long in one spot, it’s best to
throw a grenade where you’re standing and jump – and pray.”
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