Walkabout. Nicolas Roeg.

The film Walkabout, directed by Nicolas Roeg, is a simple film with many hidden images and symbols which speak volumes when really analyzed.
This story is of a depressed father living in the restricted confines of the city walls, who one day decides to bring his two children, a teenage daughter and young son, into the Australian outback where he had planned to take part in a murder suicide, due to mental issues which were driving him to a breakdown.

This tragic story, which blooms into hope and one of new life for these unsuspecting children starts off in the hectic centre of the busy city of Sydney.
The director wisely provides the viewer with many symbolic scenes and objects throughout the beginning of the film which gives an insight into the repetitive and daily lives of each character. Simple scenes such as the panning across the classroom of then teenage girl's classroom performing menotenous breathing exercises, along with the visual aid of the identical private school uniforms can be interperated as the robotic everyday tasks of school and the characters everyday life.

The directors unique fascination with buildings, brick walls and fences suggests these symbolic structures have something to do with the family and their their emotions. Just by showing blank walls it was apparent the director was showing the isolation the characters were feeling with the world and one another. The way the director diplayed the chatacters separation from everything was extrmeley creative.

Legs were also being displayed countless times, which represented the detached and impersonal figures which fill up the city. These faceless figures suggested the way the children were
living, how they had no real conntact with the people around them, and it showed what they had come from and the way they were brought up. But as the journey continues they live, learn and love thanks to the aboriginal community who help them see a different side to life and how to live.

Snowdrops. Leslie Norris.

This symbolic story is of a young boy's journey through that one day in everybody's life, when life changes and you grow up. Documented by the talented writer Leslie Norris, this story follows a young boy from the beginning, as an innocent, young and imaginative child who grows up during his one class, when his teacher invites the harsh reality of death into his unsuspecting mind during a class trip to see the young snowdrops outside the classroom.
The flower, snowdrops, which are introduced in the title, resemble many different aspects of the story, with their strong symbolisms of delicate frames during the harsh winter months. Leslie Norris connects the teacher to the flowers as they are both delicate but distrout during the tough times. For the teacher, this would be in the form of the death of her lover which is only mentioned briefly during the beginning of the story. Even by the descriptive quotes describing the flowers, such as " Greyish leaves standing up like minute spears" suggesting the young flowers are like the simple teacher who's putting up a brave face,just like to flowers, when in the presence of her kindergarten class.
The flowers may also symbolize the young students of the class, and the young boy himself, as they are all young and fragile aswell, but must all live through the harsh times ahead, and grow up from their own little world, and into reality.