Video Review: 'Walkabout'

Despite its aridly lyrical, vista-filled cinematography, Nicolas Roeg's first solo directorial outing, reissued on VHS following a brief theatrical rerelease, ultimately feels like a gulp of sand in the desert. After their father kills himself while picnicking in the Australian outback, a 14-year-old girl (Agutter) and her knicker-clad brother (John) trek home through the barren terrain. They encounter a teenage Aborigine (David Gumpilil) on his ''walkabout'' — a solitary tribal rite of passage — who proves to be their salvation. Unfortunately, the nature-good, civilization-bad theme gets old fast, and on video Roeg's close-ups of lizards and insects lend Walkabout the look of some bizarro nature film. C+