In the interview I linked to on my first post, Weir says that he was not interested in what actually happened to Miss McCraw and the missing schoolgirls, but there was a lot of suggestive material that opens the door to a series of "themes" for the viewer.
First among them is Nature as a supernatural force. Cinematography contributes to this idea significantly: the genteel school set against the Australian outback; the disturbing images of bugs and reptiles; and most of all the shots of Hanging Rock. It looks like a wild and malevolent presence in the wilderness, and several of the rocks featured resemble the face of a man or god.
There's also Miss McCraw and her assessment of the rock: "only a million years old," and her rather clinical take seemed to foreshadow her own fate at the picnic (up until that point, I assumed the youthful French teacher would vanish with the girls.)
And there's the aspect of the stopped watches, like some kind of magnetic force was at work, tampering with the technology that gave the visitors their sense of human superiority over nature.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Nature as a supernatural force is a particularly apt oxymoron to describe what seems to be happening in the film. The two strangest aspects of it for me were the stopped watches and the falling down -- the way everyone fell down and writhed was disturbing and very strange.
I agree with you about Miss McCraw and the French teacher -- the French teacher seemed a more likely candidate than Miss McCraw for disappearance.
And what was with the corset? She had clothes on over it, right? So the clothes and the corset would have had to come off and the clothes would have had to be put back on, right? Or was it supernatural? Or do I just not understand corsets?
I was confused about references to the various states of undress that the girls and Miss McCraw (particularly Miss McCraw) were in. In any case, I think the more they climbed, the more clothes were shed.
Post a Comment