Mia Wasikowska has taken part in Disney blockbusters, twisted tales from Park Chan-wook and Jim Jarmusch, and much more, but she recently saw her greatest journey yet: a trek across the Australian desert. Coming from The Painted Veil director John Curran, the project premiered on the fall festival circuit and follows the actress as Robyn Davidson, who traveled more than 1,678 miles through the desert from Alice Springs, in the center of Oz, to the west coast in 1977. Based on her original memoirs, Girl‘s Adam Driver is also part of the cast and today we have the first trailer.
While we said it frustratingly leaves some questioned answers, our TIFF review went on to say it’s “a stunningly beautiful film,” “as masterfully shot by Mandy Walker, the film has images that, at times, are lucid, while its structure and Curran’s direction takes little risks.” The Weinstein Company is expected to release Tracks next year, after it hits Aussie screens on March 6th, and one can see the first trailer below (which uses M83‘s Outro, as did Cloud Atlas) , followed by a batch of stills.
Starring Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre, Stoker) and Adam Driver (HBO’s Girls, Frances Ha, Inside Llewyn Davis), directed by John Curran (The Painted Veil, We Don’t Live Here Anymore) and from the Oscar® winning producers of The King’s Speech, Tracks is based on the inspirational and iconic true story of Robyn Davidson. Robyn’s phenomenal solo trek from Alice Springs to Uluru and on to the Indian Ocean saw her traverse 2700km of spectacular yet unforgiving Australian desert accompanied only by her loyal dog and four unpredictable camels.
Charismatic young New Yorker and National Geographic photographer Rick Smolan travelled from the other end of the earth to capture, at intervals, this epic and remarkable journey into one of the world’s last great wildernesses. Robyn reluctantly agreed to a visiting photographer in return for much needed trip funding and could only see Rick’s visits as intruding on her solitude and compromising everything the journey meant to her. However, this uneasy relationship between two very different people would slowly develop into an unlikely and enduring friendship.
Set against one of the wildest, most dangerous and most breathtaking backdrops on the planet, this unprecedented journey pushed Robyn to her physical and emotional limits and taught her that sometimes we have to detach from the world to feel connected to it. In witnessing this extraordinary journey we realise that the impossible is within reach of us all
What do you think of the first trailer?