Post by klep on Jan 28, 2019 8:01:39 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/28: Picnic at Hanging Rock
AUSTRALIA WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is provided by a guest contributor.
Note: I wrote this using the most recent Blu-Ray edition that came out in June 2014. Completely
gratuitous self-promotion on this is that I got it at the semi-annual half-price sale at a Barnes & Noble
*and* got to flip off Jenny McCarthy, there to sign whatever the hell she was promoting, on my way out
the door. So there’s that.
I think it’s always interesting to contemplate artists, such as a director like Peter Weir, when you saw
their career almost in reverse. I had seen plenty of Weirs works when I was younger, such as the
underappreciated Witness and the horrifically overrated Dead Poets Society, but I’m not sure I was ever
really that aware of him until The Truman Show, a movie I maintain is one of the better science fiction
movies of the last quarter century. At that point, I started noticing his body of work more and decided to
dig in a little deeper. It’s at this point, somewhere in 2000, that I first saw Picnic At Hanging Rock.
Now, at first glance, Picnic is pretty straightforward. It’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and a group of boarding
school girls (at what looks to be a fairly straight-laced institution in Victoria, Australia) are going on a
picnic to the rock formation known as Hanging Rock. They go there, there is also a garden party of a
older couple, their nephew and their groom, and there’s a nice quiet picnic. At which point, four of the
older girls decide to talk a walk up the rock. Here’s where everything goes sideways; they go up, the
atmosphere gets more and close and disturbing...and then three of them walk through a crevice in the
rock and the fourth girl runs back screaming.
Cut to the school and suddenly, the three girls and one of the teachers, a math teacher (Miss McCraw)
who spent her time at the rock reading a geometry text, are missing. Days go by, the remaining girl from
the walk is questioned, and yet there is no sight of any of them; all she can remember is watching them
walk through the crevice, running back and passing Miss McCraw who was going up the rock without her
skirt. There is no other sign or clue, despite search parties and the question of the other party that was
at the rock. But now the questions start piling up; why the walk? What did the fourth girl really see?
Why is the math teacher missing as well and where is her skirt? Did the nephew from the other party
see something and why is he supposedly so guilty feeling?
That nephew, Michael Fitzhubert, starts feeling so guilty that he goes back to the Rock with his groom
Albert and ends up staying overnight by himself. He’s found the next morning, delirious and clutching a
piece of lace. At which point Albert searches some more and finds one of the girls, Irma, dehydrated but
otherwise unharmed. No one else is ever found.
So! Where did everyone go? is this a science fiction movie? Did they fall through into the Dreamtime?
Did Michael actually have something to do with their disappearance? Why doesn’t Irma remember
anything? What is with the subplot of Sara, the girl that was left behind from the picnic because they
feels she’s getting too close (in a Dangerous Creatures sort of way) to one of the missing girls, Miranda?
Is the disappearance of the girls the actual problem of the movie or is it just something that highlights the
cracks in the facade of the boarding school (there’s constant references to losing money, girls being
withdrawn or behind on their tuition, especially Sara)?
It’s that last one, for me, that seems to be the central...theme, if there is one, of Picnic. This is a movie
that delights in having high Australian attempt to impose it’s mores on Australia (there’s so, so many
shots of people in Victorian dress having small parties surrounded by wildlife that would cheerfully kill
them) as well as attempting to impose order on teenage girls who are becoming women. The
disappearances are not even especially that important as they are just that which exposes the problems
of this dying society for what they are.
I’ve seen the movie five times at this point, and I’m still comfortable in being unclear as to what actually
happens. It’s one of those great movies that you can take multiple ways and it may be all or some of
those ways at the same time (but is not infuriatingly indecisive in it’s vagueness).
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 2/4: Chicken Run
KIDS' MOVIES WEEK!
Fir Kids' Movies Week we're turning to none other than Aardman Animations' Chicken Run, from the studio that brought us Wallace and Gromit. Join us next week for our discussion of the great chicken escape! Chicken Run is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 1/29: Glass
Next week the podcast crew closes out their discussion of the Shyamalaniverse with the concluding entry in the trilogy, Glass. We'll have a thread up for discussion on Wednesday. Glass is still in theaters.
AUSTRALIA WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is provided by a guest contributor.
Note: I wrote this using the most recent Blu-Ray edition that came out in June 2014. Completely
gratuitous self-promotion on this is that I got it at the semi-annual half-price sale at a Barnes & Noble
*and* got to flip off Jenny McCarthy, there to sign whatever the hell she was promoting, on my way out
the door. So there’s that.
I think it’s always interesting to contemplate artists, such as a director like Peter Weir, when you saw
their career almost in reverse. I had seen plenty of Weirs works when I was younger, such as the
underappreciated Witness and the horrifically overrated Dead Poets Society, but I’m not sure I was ever
really that aware of him until The Truman Show, a movie I maintain is one of the better science fiction
movies of the last quarter century. At that point, I started noticing his body of work more and decided to
dig in a little deeper. It’s at this point, somewhere in 2000, that I first saw Picnic At Hanging Rock.
Now, at first glance, Picnic is pretty straightforward. It’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and a group of boarding
school girls (at what looks to be a fairly straight-laced institution in Victoria, Australia) are going on a
picnic to the rock formation known as Hanging Rock. They go there, there is also a garden party of a
older couple, their nephew and their groom, and there’s a nice quiet picnic. At which point, four of the
older girls decide to talk a walk up the rock. Here’s where everything goes sideways; they go up, the
atmosphere gets more and close and disturbing...and then three of them walk through a crevice in the
rock and the fourth girl runs back screaming.
Cut to the school and suddenly, the three girls and one of the teachers, a math teacher (Miss McCraw)
who spent her time at the rock reading a geometry text, are missing. Days go by, the remaining girl from
the walk is questioned, and yet there is no sight of any of them; all she can remember is watching them
walk through the crevice, running back and passing Miss McCraw who was going up the rock without her
skirt. There is no other sign or clue, despite search parties and the question of the other party that was
at the rock. But now the questions start piling up; why the walk? What did the fourth girl really see?
Why is the math teacher missing as well and where is her skirt? Did the nephew from the other party
see something and why is he supposedly so guilty feeling?
That nephew, Michael Fitzhubert, starts feeling so guilty that he goes back to the Rock with his groom
Albert and ends up staying overnight by himself. He’s found the next morning, delirious and clutching a
piece of lace. At which point Albert searches some more and finds one of the girls, Irma, dehydrated but
otherwise unharmed. No one else is ever found.
So! Where did everyone go? is this a science fiction movie? Did they fall through into the Dreamtime?
Did Michael actually have something to do with their disappearance? Why doesn’t Irma remember
anything? What is with the subplot of Sara, the girl that was left behind from the picnic because they
feels she’s getting too close (in a Dangerous Creatures sort of way) to one of the missing girls, Miranda?
Is the disappearance of the girls the actual problem of the movie or is it just something that highlights the
cracks in the facade of the boarding school (there’s constant references to losing money, girls being
withdrawn or behind on their tuition, especially Sara)?
It’s that last one, for me, that seems to be the central...theme, if there is one, of Picnic. This is a movie
that delights in having high Australian attempt to impose it’s mores on Australia (there’s so, so many
shots of people in Victorian dress having small parties surrounded by wildlife that would cheerfully kill
them) as well as attempting to impose order on teenage girls who are becoming women. The
disappearances are not even especially that important as they are just that which exposes the problems
of this dying society for what they are.
I’ve seen the movie five times at this point, and I’m still comfortable in being unclear as to what actually
happens. It’s one of those great movies that you can take multiple ways and it may be all or some of
those ways at the same time (but is not infuriatingly indecisive in it’s vagueness).
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 2/4: Chicken Run
KIDS' MOVIES WEEK!
Fir Kids' Movies Week we're turning to none other than Aardman Animations' Chicken Run, from the studio that brought us Wallace and Gromit. Join us next week for our discussion of the great chicken escape! Chicken Run is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 1/29: Glass
Next week the podcast crew closes out their discussion of the Shyamalaniverse with the concluding entry in the trilogy, Glass. We'll have a thread up for discussion on Wednesday. Glass is still in theaters.