You are breathing deeply and calmly. The air is fresh like after a short summer rain. You want to breath more and more. You want to steal this air. But there is no rain in the film Tracks by John Curran. There is only the Australian desert and 25 year old Robyn (Mia Wasikowska) with her dog and four camels, heading out to cross 2700 km of desert and reach the Indian Ocean. Does it sound a little bit improbable for you? Some new story straight from the head of a scriptwriter? Impossible? Is it a fairytale or what? No, it is totally true. The film TRACKS is based on the real story of Robyn Davidson who did this trip in 1977 and then wrote the book "Tracks" that immediatly became famous in Australia and all over the world.
"Why do you want to do it?" - everybody asks Robyn in the film.
"Why not?" - she answers.
"Why have you done this?" - journalists ask the real Robyn in Venice 36 years after her journey.
And this "why?" makes the film TRACKS so breathtaking and thrilling. It is a road-movie, but the geographical points of the beginning and of the end of the trip are not so important, The road is much longer than 2700 km. This road is a search for yourself, maybe the road from your own soul to your own heart and mind, the search for connections between these sometimes divided parts inside the person.
The film gives enough space to find your own reasons for Robyn's trip, because each viewer can find his own personal explanation from his own experience of why he sometimes needs to run away from civilisation, to go back to nature, back to the basic survival mode of human life, to run away from ourselves and towards ourselves at the same time. But, of course, Robyn's answer is given smartly and subtly in the film. Flashbacks of Robyn's childhood appear in her head as associations with her actual enviroment - the arrangement of the furniture in the room or the color of a sunset... Robyn was 11 when her mother comitted suicide and shortly after this her father sent her to live with her aunt. " I don't remember my mother and don't really know my father," -says Robyn in the film.
The main aim of the trip for Robyn is disconnection from her own emotions of pain and fear and she tries to reach this goal by disconnecting from people and from society as a whole. So the young photographer Rick (ADAM DRIVER) just disturbs her when he comes repeatedly and tries to stage photos for the National Geographic. Even though she has sex with him, she doesn't want to see him the next morning. The building of relationships is something that comes to a person from his or her childhood through the observation of their parents' relationships. Robyn didn't have this experience. Her trip through the desert is also a learning process; learning how to be close to another person, understanding the values of love and friendship. One person who helps her to get this knowledge is the aboriginal Mr. Eddy (Rolley MINTUMA). He speaks a language that Robyn doesn't know, but it doesn't matter. What he gives her doesn't need words.
The film TRACKS reminds me of Into the Wild by Sean Penn: the nature environments are polar opposites: the hot deserts of Australia and the frozen forests of Alaska; but the main characters are searching for the same things and it seems to me that at the end, they come to the same thoughts. Robyn screams "I'm so alone!" and paradoxily this sad confession is the beginning of her recovery and is the first step to happiness.
What did this trip give to you? This question was asked again and again at the press conference. The real Robyn answered: " a change of consciousness." The question was asked again. "Transformation" - she answered. And the same question the third time... " You know...I think I fell in love with my father again."
Nine months of solitude and trying to survive from heat and cold, starvation, wild animals, hallucinations, and so on... Maybe it is the road to forgiveness?
This film gives the feeling of breathing deep an air full of truth, sensations and love. What do you need else?30/30