Filming Locations: Flinders Ranges, South Australia, Australia
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Did You Know?
Trivia:
There has been many attempts to bring Robyn Davidson's adventure memoir to the big screen. Over the years both Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman have been attached to the lead role. Development on the movie adaptation began before lead actress Mia Wasikowska was even born. See more »
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Rating: 9/10
Poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman said, "The great affair, the love
affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's
curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop
over the thick, sun struck hills every day." One such high-spirited
thoroughbred is Australian naturalist Robyn Davidson who, at the age of
27, crossed the Australian outback in 1977 from Alice Springs to the
Indian Ocean with only four camels and her dog as companions. Nominated
for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, Director John Curran's
Tracks documented Davidson's nine-month journey of 1677 miles without
adding layers of melodrama to distract us from her true spirit of
adventure and love of nature.
Based on Robyn Davidson's classic travel book of the same name and
supported by the extraordinary cinematography of Mandy Walker and the
lovely score by Garth Stevenson, the film follows Robyn as she travels
solo across the unfathomable desert. Sponsored by National Geographic
magazine, photographer Rick Smolan (Adam Driver) was chosen by the
magazine to photograph her journey for the magazine, but only meets up
with her at scattered points during her trip. Davidson at first finds
Rick annoyingly over-talkative, but slowly warms to his support and
caring and they become friends, while still keeping their distance.
Not much information is given as to Robyn's motivations in undertaking
this adventure, but the film does provide flashbacks over the course of
the film informing us about events in the naturalist's past involving
loss and disappointment. In some ways, comparable to Chris McCandless'
odyssey as documented in Sean Penn's 2007 film Into the Wild, Robyn's
goal is to convince herself that she is up to the task of following her
own path without having to conform to society's expectations. In spite
of her need for solitude, however, she learns to compromise with
friends and reach an understanding with visiting journalists looking
for a story, even though at one point she says to a resident of the
desert, "It's hard to explain that I just want perfectly nice people to
shut up and die." Though Robyn does her best to avoid the unwanted
company, she eventually recognizes her need for support from others,
not only from Rick, but also from an Aboriginal elder named Eddy (Roly
Mintuma), who accompanies her to make sure that she avoids the
Aboriginal's sacred land. Mia Wasikowska as Davidson perfectly captures
the sharp edges of her enigmatic personality while still retaining her
adamant refusal to be the effect of her social limitations. It is a
strong performance that may earn her consideration for a Best Actress
award at the 2014 Oscars.
Though some viewers may become restless with the unchanging landscape
and the lack of overt drama, obstacles do appear in the form of wild
bull camels charging towards her and the need for her to take a 160
mile detour to avoid Aboriginal lands. While Tracks has a surprising
amount of clutter for an adventure into the wild, as Davidson comes
closer to her goal, the growing quiet and emptiness of the vast outback
turns her journey into an experience that assumes a dreamlike and
spiritual aura.
Through it all, her fierce determination to accomplish her goal while
still retaining her sense of self grows stronger. Davidson in a recent
interview said that "At the time, all young people pretty much wanted
to do extraordinary things and extend the limits of what had been given
to them as their roles." Poet e e cummings agrees, saying, "To be
nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day,
to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battles which any
human being can fight, and never stop fighting." That is the legacy of
Robyn Davidson.
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