Tracks

Synopsis: In 1975, a young woman in her mid-twenties arrives in Alice Springs together with her dog, Diggity, planning to gather a few camels and make a solo 1700 mile (2700 km) trek across the desert to the Indian Ocean. This is the true story of Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska) and her journey as covered by National Geographic photographer, Rick Smolan (Adam Driver).

For years film-makers have tried to get their hands on the rights to Davidson's book, published in 1980, about her epic adventure but the author wanted it to be an Australian film. Finally, John Curran, an American-born but Australian-based director, who was responsible for the very fine Naomi Watts/Edward Norton film, The Painted Veil some years back, has made it. The result captures the essentially Australian nature of the story yet with enough broad appeal to thrill any audience that would appreciate top-notch film-making.

The choice of Wasikowska as Davidson reaps rich dividends. This versatile and committed young actor (recently showcasing her prodigious talents in Stoker and Jane Eyre) is unafraid to immerse herself in every aspect of the character, from her physical ordeal to her emotional and spiritual challenges.

We first meet Robyn as a child in an enigmatically brooding opening scene, which is later explained via several flashbacks which fill in some of the explorer’s motivations. We quickly understand Robyn’s  reclusive nature as a woman keen to escape the strictures of society, family and friends. Her bravery in heading to Alice Springs, at that time an intimidatingly male-dominated place where she works for two years with two rough-and-ready camel trainers is simply awe-inspiring

The cinematography is top-notch. Filmed in the northern deserts of South Australia, and at Uluru, DOP Mandy Walker, who lensed Baz Luhrman's Australia, uses 35mm film, which makes for a visually rich and almost transcendent experience, the vastness underscoring Robyn’s isolation, as does the hauntingly beautiful music of double-bassist, Garth Stevenson.

Aspects of this tale reminded me of a favourite film of mine, The Straight Story. In both we share in a journey that is also a pilgrimage, the main characters meeting folk along the way, people who are kindly and generous and with whom they experience a mutual enhancement of their lives. So it is that Robyn meets Mr Eddy (Rolley Mintuma in a performance to be relished), an indigenous elder who accompanies her for part of the trek through sacred Aboriginal land. She overnights with an old couple in their middle-of-nowhere home. And of course Rick, her occasional companion, initially much unwanted, proves to be a godsend when she realises that her sought-for isolation isn’t entirely a bed of roses. The two camel men, Sally Mohamed (John Flaus) and Kurt Posel (Rainer Bock), also have critical lessons to teach Robyn about the animals which become so much more to her than beasts of burden (the main four even get their own credits!).

Not a film for the impatient, much of the viewing experience requires a surrender to the passing of time, a letting-go which makes moments of dramatic tension all the more glorious and the simple moments of pleasure, such as finding a swimming hole, palpably uplifting.

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