Whispers of an Empty Land

In Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 film ‘Walkabout’, the vast, sun-drenched Australian outback takes on a haunting silence. This silence is far from empty; it echoes the weight of colonial history. Roeg depicts the outback as a barren, unpopulated space, a “terra nullius,” meaning “nobody’s land” waiting to be claimed. As Deborah Bird Rose explains in “Nourishing Terrains”, the concept of terra nullius was used to justify European settlement. It ignored the sophisticated ways Indigenous peoples managed and cared for the landscape. Roeg’s portrayal aligns with the colonial narrative that dispossessed Indigenous peoples and denied the existence of their vibrant cultures and knowledge systems, which had thrived for millennia.

Outback Microcosms

Despite the film’s depiction of the outback as empty, the landscape teems with life. The camera captures intricate wildlife, the interplay of light and shadow on ancient rock formations, and the enigmatic presence of David Gulpilil’s Indigenous character. This character seems to emerge organically from the land itself, embodying a deep cultural knowledge and connection to the country. His presence starkly contrasts with the colonial erasure of Indigenous existence, revealing the resilience of Indigenous culture amidst centuries of attempts to erase it.

Silencing of Indigenous Voices

Despite his centrality, Gulpilil’s character is given minimal dialogue, his voice and story consumed by the film’s Western gaze. This silence is not merely an absence of sound, but a potent symbol of the broader erasure of Indigenous perspectives in colonial narratives. As Marcia Langton argues in her seminal essay “Well, I heard it on the radio and I saw it on the television,” silences and stereotypes have long characterised the representation of Aboriginal people in Australian film. Her analysis delves into how Indigenous characters are often relegated to the background, their stories and experiences treated as secondary to those of white protagonists. Even when they are present, they are frequently depicted through a lens of exoticism and otherness, their complexity reduced to simplistic tropes. This pattern of representation is deeply rooted in the colonial mindset, which seeks to maintain the dominance of Western perspectives.

Orientalist Othering of First Nations People

Edward Said argues that Western representations of the “Orient” are characterised by a process of othering, where complex realities are reduced to simplistic stereotypes. In ‘Walkabout’, we see this dynamic play out in the treatment of Gulpilil’s character. Rather than being presented as a fully realised human being with his own agency and interiority, he becomes an exotic, mystical figure, an aesthetic feature of the landscape. His knowledge and his culture are undermined by the film’s Orientalising gaze. This representational strategy operates as a form of silencing, denying Indigenous people to tell their own stories on their own terms. By doing so, colonial narratives inadvertently maintain the illusion of white supremacy and justify the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous lands and resources.

Beneath the Serene Surface

At first glance, ‘Walkabout’ portrays the outback as a serene, untouched wilderness. Its cinematography captures the raw beauty of the landscape but masks a far more violent history. The brutality of frontier violence, the forced removal of children, and the systematic attempts to erase Indigenous languages and cultures are rarely acknowledged in mainstream Australian cinema. This history is all too often sanitised in popular representations, the complexities and traumas smoothed over in service of a more palatable narrative. But as postcolonial theorists have long argued, this sanitisation is itself a form of violence, perpetuating the erasure of Indigenous experiences and perspectives. By presenting the outback as an empty, untouched space, devoid of human history or conflict, films like ‘Walkabout’ reinforce the very colonial narratives they purport to critique. They obscure the fact that the serenity they depict is born of the privilege of not having to confront the ugly realities of colonialism.

Imperial Amnesia

The erasure of history, and sanitisation of trauma, is not unique to ‘Walkabout’. In literature, Indigenous characters are relegated to the background, their stories treated as mere footnotes, as seen in Xavier Herbert’s Capricornia. In art, the complexity of Indigenous experiences is reduced to simplistic, exoticised tropes, exemplified by colonial landscape painters like John Glover, who erased Indigenous presence while portraying the Australian landscape as untouched and awaiting settlement. In film, Indigenous voices are silenced, denying their right to shape their own narratives. This pattern shows just how strongly postcolonial experiences continue to shape our understanding of the past and the present. It is a reminder of the urgent need for counter-narratives, for stories that shatter the silence and challenge the sanitised versions of history that have for too long gone unchallenged.

Towards New Narratives

Despite the silences in Walkabout, recent progress offers hope. A 2023 study by Screen Australia found that First Nations representation in media has increased from 4.8% to 7.2%, surpassing the population benchmark of 3.8%. Screen Australia’s Head of First Nations, Angela Bates, highlights the importance of this shift: “For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be able to see ourselves represented on screen is powerful. This result shows good progress and it’s not by accident, it represents years of advocacy and consistent hard work to ensure our practitioners feel supported and are afforded opportunities in an industry that hasn’t always been accessible.”

Emerging Positive Representation

A wave of Australian films has recently emerged containing more nuanced and empathetic ways of telling Indigenous stories. Among them are Sweet Country (2017), Top End Wedding (2019), and Firestarter – The Story of Bangarra (2020). These films not only recognise the growing presence of Indigenous Australian voices in cinema, but also serve to present authentic, multidimensional representations of First Nations people, their cultures, and their stories. Bates emphasises the transformative power of Indigenous-led storytelling. She notes that empowering Indigenous creators to tell their own stories leads to more authentic representation, breaking down stereotypes and barriers.