Wow - could the blog finally be updated? Yes it is - finally -
After 6 weeks of more or less getting moved and getting a house ready to rent, I had two hours tonight to sit in my new living room, and watch this blu-ray on my TV on a new stand several feet above the floor elevated like a real movie screen -
And what a movie it is - a 1975 Australian ...I don't know whether to say Mystery, Thriller, or Horror film - Right off the bat the film tells you - several schoolgirls go missing at a Picnic at Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day 1900 and are never found. The rest of the film is that day and the weeks that follow, the effect on the townspeople and those who last saw the girls.
The two cast members that stand out are Miranda, played by Anne Louise Lambert. I don't (and probably never will) know her for any other roles than this one, but as the teenage angel of the group, her performance, especially the unspoken parts, are entrancing and enchanting. She is, as one review puts it "Venus coming into being" -
This is in stark contrast to the other main character......the site of Hanging Rock itself - a stark foreboding place (made much more so by the music of Zamfir, the pan flute virtoso in the soundtrack) - This is an outcropping of volcanic rock teeming with dangerous life and wonder, and it is in the maze of volcanic caves and rocks that the women vanish without a trace
The contrast between these Victorian (and virginal) women in white to the stark towers with ancient faces that seem to stare back at you is almost terrifying - suddenly you find yourself having the heebie jeebies in the dark and having to turn on the light to finish the movie :)
Peter Weir directed it - and he also directed three of my other favorite films, two of which I keep in my DVD collection - Dead Poets Society and Master and Commander:The Far Side of the World - (the other film was Witness) - This was one of the masterpieces of his early career, and a masterpiece of Australian cinema, from what I understand. Def. worth your time. The Blu-Ray I saw had several special features, and I heard there's even a copy of the novel in one of the most recent releases as it's out of print.
On a side note - this has been remade into a 6 part television series for Australian TV which I understand is going to star Natalie Dormer and will also be released in the United States - THAT will be interesting - there is a small degree of Freudian sexuality that slips out here and there and I suspect the remake will like most films, make the innuendo and sly hints ridiculously overt and explicit but hey, what the hell - Maybe I'll watch it when it comes out
RB
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