The conclusion of Picnic at Hanging Rock confused many of us and left a number of people wanting more (some bitterly so). I had the unique perspective of knowing just how little concrete resolution there was to the film before having seen it the first time, so my disappointment took on the form of intrigue. We talked about multiple viewings of a film and there are few films that call for that more than Picnic. Watching it a second time allows you to experience it without the prejudices of a first time viewing (expecting an "ending"), and the focus can shift from story to themes. I've seen it multiple times and have watched it for plot, theme and most recently through the lens of the opening line: "What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream" (Weir's addition, taken from a Poe poem, not from the novel).
For those of you still lusting for some sort of closure, I've included a source that outlines the supposed deleted chapter from the novel by Joan Lindsay (this chapter was released after her death...). http://www.mck.com.au/users/brett/index.html?content=picnic.htm
There's a hint about this ending having some validity, as you'll note in the movie one of the school maids says, "There's no corset. Miss Irma's corset, it's missing!" This comes seemingly out of context without the above information, essentially a red herring in the film (the quote comes at 9:12 into the video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnrWBMYWl2s
Also, I've included a link to a compilation of the scenes that were removed from the Director's Cut of the film, one of them towards the end acting as a nice example of the "mateship" idea that we began talking about last class. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHX4B_mxlB0
Lastly, just for fun, I suggest everyone check out a novel called Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. It has some eerie similarities to the incidents in Picnic, and at one point he even mentions a story about an Australian boarding school for girls that went on a field trip and suffered a mass coma-like state from which everyone awoke without memory of how or what had happened and no ill effects. Amazon
- Matt Holden
5 comments:
sorry, the formatting went all wacky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI9uIFKMJbY
scenes and commentary about the unused ending.
I took a look at the Brett McKenzie's article on "The Solution to Joan Lindsay's Novel: Picnic at Hanging Rock." I was a little "bitter" and looking for closure myself. It's interesting that the truth is so simple! I was thinking something very mystical happened, when it was simply a landslide that killed the girls. I guess, from the point of a viewer who loves twist endings, I’m a little disappointed. Maybe the movie has more appeal with the mystery.
I thought this line was interesting: McKenzie says that “the mystery does not have to be explained using far fetched reasoning.”
Has anyone ever seen The Virgin Suicides? It’s not an Australian film, but the storyline and overall atmosphere of the film reminds me of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Like PHR (Picnic at Hanging Rock), The Virgin Suicides is about 5 sisters—the Lisbon girls—who are “lost” (I won’t say how as to not spoil the movie) and the effect that loss has on the people who knew them. There are so many parallels now that I think about it!
1) Dream-like (both angelic and erotic) portrayal of the girls
2) Loss of innocence when leaving a sheltered environment
3) White clothing and lots of long blonde hair
4) A mystery unsolved and how it tortures the people left behind
(just to name a few)
Here is a quote from the narrator in the film (who is one of the neighborhood boys who fell under the Lisbon girl’s spell:
Narrator: So much has been said about the girls over the years. But we have never found an answer. It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls... but only that we had loved them... and that they hadn't heard us calling... still do not hear us calling them from out of those rooms... where they went to be alone for all time... and where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.
I remember being fascinated, uncomfortable, and somewhat frustrated by the ambiguous ending. However, movies like VS and PHR probably wouldn’t be the same viewing experience if we were looking for clues to a definite solution. You might say “Uh, yeah, it would be better.” Or “no, it wouldn’t be as interesting.”
Does anyone know a link for the alternate ending to PHR that other people wrote? I wonder how much the film would change (better or worse) if one of those had been used.
There is a book that posits over a dozen possible "endings" or explanations for the missing girls. I can't recall the name and my information on it was lost with all my links when my laptop died. But I'll keep looking. Personally I like the idea of more possibilities to the mystery than a simple landslide, including some of the more far-out possibilities, such as alien abduction!
Here are some other interesting sources I found:
This one has a number of excellent bibiographical sources
An interesting academic article
A good article on Peter Weir's cinema from Film Quarterly
Thank you! I am interested to read through those -- especially the one about alien abduction!
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