Tracks

A film set in the Australian desert. Robyn wants to make a journey alone: from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, across the desert. She will have four camels and a dog with her. The preparation takes two years. She does not know how to train a camel; she works without pay on a station and learns the animals in return. To find money she applies to a magazine. It agrees to cover the costs on one condition: a photographer will reach her at intervals and take pictures. The journey begins. The days resemble each other: finding water, tending the camels, keeping out of the heat and not losing direction. Rick the photographer appears each time. Robyn wants to be alone and the visits unsettle her; they are also her only human contact. In one section an old Aboriginal man goes with her; she cannot pass alone through country held sacred. What the film is interested in is not the achievement but why someone wants to be alone. The narrative does not explain it fully, and Robyn does not explain it either. The source is Robyn Davidson's book; the journey was made in 1977. Mia Wasikowska plays Robyn and Adam Driver the photographer. John Curran directed. It was shot along the real route. A strong choice for anyone who likes journey narratives and landscape cinema. For a viewer waiting for events, the film is built on repetition and silence.