'Tracks' adapts Robyn Davidson's story of solo journey
Tracks stars Mia Wasikowska as Robyn Davidson, the independent Australian woman who decided to walk across the continent by herself.
"TRACKS" is a movie about the love that these days dare not speak its name - the love of being alone in a world that's made "connectivity" its highest virtue.
It's the true story of Aussie loner Robyn Davidson (Mia Wasikowska), who in 1977 decided, rather obstinately, to walk across the deserts of western Australia, a 1,700 mile sojourn she later turned into a celebrated book.
That chronicle aside, her journey is a mystery to many. Why? Why cross a desert that had been crossed by others? Why refuse companionship? Why flip off the tourists who try to take your picture?
To folks like Davidson, these questions surely answer themselves - I'm doing it to get away from from irksome interrogators.
Davidson, to be accurate, wasn't completely alone. She took three camels, and her pet dog, Diggy (the greatest Australian movie dog since "Road Warrior"). She also agreed to be photographed on three occasions by a fellow (Adam Driver) from National Geographic.
In the movie's opening moments, we see that friends and family fear for her safety - they wonder if Robyn isn't suicidal, like her late mother.
The photographer wonders if Robyn simply isn't merely cruel - they share a brief fling, and next day she looks at him as if he's just another camel.
"I don't think you like people," he concludes.
But that's not exactly right. Robyn gets along just fine with the aborigines she encounters along the way, perhaps because they themselves have learned how to locate peace and contentment in the middle of nowhere.
Director John Curran clearly loves his subject, and has an affinity for ascetic types. His underrated "Painted Veil" was an interesting study of a physician's monk-ish isolation in the wake of his wife's infidelity.
Here, he grants Davidson her valued personal space. He shows her as a speck of human life against the vast, surreal and indifferent landscape, to allow her thoughts to remain her own.
The danger is that Davidson remains opaque, but that's kind of the point. The movie bills this as a journey of self-discovery, but Davidson discovers what she already knew about herself - she's most alive when she's alone.
And there's something heroic in her desolate immersion. She doesn't blog it, tweet it, post it or turn it into a petrified memorial with a selfie. She lives in these moments, and is therefore fully alive.