Burke and Wills is an Australian movie about the first two white men who transversed the Australian continent south-north in 1860-61.The movie seems to be faithful to their actual experiences. These two men, with others, faced the hardship of deserts, droughts, swamps, and excessive heat throughout their journeys. Unfortunately, the inexperienced Burke resisted contact with the aboriginals who were pretty much traveling with them (at a distance) the entire time. And the aboriginals, being in harmony with their environment, were well fed and traveled without the discomfort of the whites. Burke and Wills was filmed in 1985 and has the feel of a 1950s movie when showing the few city scenes. I almost stop watching this movie after a half hour and was going to shut it off when the expedition encountered the first aboriginals and then the film really held my interest.
A companion piece to this movie is Mountains of the Moon, a 1990 movie about the Burton and Speke expedition to find the source of the Nile. Mountains of the Moon is actually one of my favorite movies and if you have time for one, the Nile expedition is the better of the two.
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