TRACKS - Thursday 3rd April 2014

'TRACKS' is a feel good movie set against the backdrop of the Western Australian desert in all its sun drenched, parched, unforgiving red arid beauty. I saw this last night at the Collaroy Twin Cinema and enjoyed the journey (forgive the pun!).

This is the true story of Robyn Davidson's 2,750km nine month trek from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean in 1977 accompanied only by her faithful dog, four camels and occasionally en route National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan, and an Aboriginal Elder to permit her passage through sacred territory.

Played out by Mia Wasikowska in the lead role she is expertly cast as the confident, if a little apprehensive, traveller embarking on her journey of discovery, isolation and following in her explorer fathers footsteps. Robyn's back story is played down and captured only in faint glimpses of flashback - her mothers suicide, having to go live with her aunt, parting company with her beloved golden labrador, and growing up on a cattle station in Queensland's Darling Downs during a seven year drought spell that almost bankrupted the family.

Aside from these insights we have her personal journey and sweeping vistas of some of Australia's most beautiful stunning outback scenery that few of us will ever experience. Her trek is sponsored by the National Geographic magazine (hence the omni-present photographer Rick Smolan [played by Adam Driver] whose stunning photos appear in the closing credits montage), and for the most part this is the extent of the regular and predictable human contact she has. There are passing tourists, Aboriginal communities, and sundry other flotsam & jetsam that she encounters and who all want a photograph with the 'Camel Lady', and this is about as exciting as it gets. But, that's OK because the journey is the heart and the soul of this story interlaced with the emotion and the beauty all around her . . . and then there are the camels!

The camels are well cast too, and the relationship that develops along her journey is one of respect, dependance and genuine care, and it is these four dromedary desert dwellers that also add to the strength of the film and provide for some comedic, stirring and emotional moments.
Go and see this film on the big screen to do justice to the stunning sweeping scenery of the Australian outback, and escape for a couple of hours to a place you should go to but probably never will. Enjoy the journey!



-Steve, at Odeon Online-