Picnic At Hanging Rock

On Valentines Day 1900 a group of students from the Appleyard College left for a day trip to Hanging Rock, in Australia’s Mount Macedon area. Enjoying the beauty of the rock several of the party are slightly bemused by the sudden failure of their watches, all of which stopped at exactly 12 o’clock, although Miss McCraw puts this down to a magnetic force from the once volcanic rock. Having enjoyed a day of wonder in the sunshine at the base of Hanging Rock, four of the students decide to embark on a hike to the top of the rock formation, led by Miranda (Anne Lambert) the schools most admired pupil. After a lengthy climb the girls lay out just minutes from the top to embrace in the warmth of the sun, and take chance to rest.
One of the girls known as Edith awakens to see her three classmates venturing further up the rock without her, and although attempts to catch up with them cannot. Edith returns to the base in a state of shock, unable to speak of what has happened other than her three classmates have disappeared, what she can recall however is a bright red cloud, and passing Miss McCraw as she made her way up the hill, in a strange trance and without a skirt, McCraw too disappears.

Picnic At Hanging Rock is one of the greatest mysteries of all time, but bigger a mystery is the fact that so many believe the story to be true.

Thinking back I first saw Picnic At Hanging Rock about 25 years ago, and I must confess I was less than impressed, however rather like a might fine wine the movie has grown in wonder to me as I have grown older. In the last six or seven years it has become one of my favourite movies, and despite it’s UK imposed PG certificate its possibly one of the most disturbing movies currently available on DVD.

While Weir’s direction is mesmerising, showing us a variety of beautifully framed shots; the heart of the movie is in its chilling soundtrack by Bruce Smeaton, a little used composer. Using the traditional pan pies so native to Australia, a variety of classical numbers played by orchestras, and electronica. The effect of the music, gives the movie a real feeling of menace, almost to the extent that you feel like you have stumbled upon something you should have not have. To the other extreme, your given musical moments of extreme beauty so sublime you forget the horrors of earlier scenes.

The wonder of Joan Lindsay’s story, Cliff Green’s screenplay, and Peter Weir’s direction is that every single scene is pivotal to the story, those airy fairy moments that seem throwaway in their nature are all incredibly important to the story; casual references in conversation such as issue of time are so terribly important, and this is what sets the movie apart from so many other movies, nothing is irrelevant.

The horror of the events on Hanging Rock, are nothing compared to the horror that takes place at the Appleyard School, strangely this somehow overshadows the other issues of the film, not in a bad way, but it gives it a whole new dimension. The curious Mrs. Appleyard rules the school strongly, but no more than any other school of the day, what is however different is the subtle bullying of Sara a girl with a less fortunate home life than any of the other girls. This brings about a real tragedy bigger than anything else in the movie.

It’s an interesting view that the movie gives us, turning the clock back 108 years, how much has changed. This is best delivered to the viewer in one particular scene where the girls are told as soon as they are miles away from the college that they may have permission to remove their gloves, if they so wished.

The cast is a gathering of beautiful people both female and male, and I believe this is deliberate because it makes the loss so much more tragic, even Miss McCraw an older lady has a certain older beauty about her. McCraw of interest was played by actress Vivean Grey who is best known as Mrs. Mangle from TV show Neighbours, Grey’s career was cut short by a series of tragedies, firstly her character in TV show the Prisoner was virtually cut out completely due to a law suit bought about by a party that claimed her performance was far to similar to a real life character, and her experiences as Mrs. Mangle were so extreme due to the popularity of Neighbours that people in public found it difficult to tell the difference between the character and the actress, in 1988 Grey retired in acting distraught by events.

Of the other cast member you have Rachel Roberts one time wife Rex Harrison, here as Mrs. Appleyard her performance is forthright and exacting. Apparently so harsh was her performance that the young actresses literally hated her, so much so that often she would ask that the girls were removed from set, because should could not bear to be hated by them. There is even a train of thought that the performance was not in fact acting, rather like Appleyard she liked both men and a good drink. Roberts committed suicide five years later, the horrors she endured her co-workers with seemingly the start of the end.

Meanwhile the young and inexperienced cast literally performed as they would in real life, sought out due to the fact that they came from backwaters where culture had not quite got hold, while City actresses were into pop music, the cast were selected mainly of Adelaide actresses whose biggest interests were the crafts scene, no interest in music or boys. Leading these was Anne- Louise Lambert, an actress as stunning now 33 years on as she was back then. Long after the movie has ended you remember the beauty of Lambert.

The wonder of Picnic At Hanging Rock is that it is a story without end, when novelist Joan Lindsay sent the book to publishers back in 1967, ingenious minds decided to remove the final chapter leaving the story open ended. It’s this careful editing that made the story so famous, and ultimately if you like one of the biggest hoaxes of all time, with people convinced to this very day that the events in the book and the movie are true. The story begins with a cleverly written prologue, and a final epilogue, this is carried forward from the book to the movie. In 1975 when the movie was made, only the clever editors at the publishing house and Joan Lindsay knew the truth, this truth was not revealed until 12 years after the movie was made and can be found in the book The Secret Of Hanging Rock, those purchasing the book Picnic At Hanging Rock will find no conclusion.
I should add that this lack of ending does not weaken either the book or the movie (both equally as good) in fact it’s the real essence of the magic, had that final chapter have been included this would not be something we would talk about now. It should be pointed out that Picnic At Hanging Rock was the very first blockbuster Australian movie, with sales across the world being massive. This being said the movie failed to please audiences in the US, who desperately wanted an ending.

It’s not very often that when a directors cut of the movie is released that the original is somewhat lost altogether, but this is exactly what happened, the original print disappeared completely for over ten years. Then after being considered lost the original print returned, sadly though preservation of this print was impossible due to the source material the print was found on.


It’s important to point out before I finish that Hanging Rock and Ayres Rock (also known as Uluru) are very different locations, though I note that people reviewing this over the years often have this fact confused.

On The Doll

Not to be confused with the UK expression “On the dole” meaning collecting unemployment benefit; On The Doll is a reference for sexual abuse, an expression delivered by a psychiatrist to an abused child asking them to indicate where on the doll they were touched. So from this basis alone I guess it’s understandable for you to think twice about seeing this movie, as it has gone into an area of the world that we don’t like to think exists. To avoid this movie however would be sad because for the most part its incredibly well written, nicely pieced together, and at times quite amusing.

 

Laid out like pieces of a puzzle the story is told from the angle of several relatively innocent parties who have either been abused or sadly are about to be. The idea of the movie is designed to show the effect that sexual abuse can have on a young mind, changing what might ordinarily be a normal way of life. A big factor about the movie is that it shows that all the victims of the movie are betrayed by someone in a trust position, a carer, a relative, a teacher. When you are in a situation that someone is trusted with you, and you have that trust abused the repercussions of this have far reaching effects.

 

The movie is shot with a grey scale imagery, this allows the movie from offset to be sunken to sombre depths within seconds of the movie beginning. The opening scene features two schoolgirls chatting, one putting lipstick on with a penis shaped lipstick. The wider picture shows these two young girls sat legs apart so someone in a nearby car can see up their skirts. This is not designed to show certain deviant behaviour from the girls aspect, but to show that once you reach a certain age it’s normal to experiment in certain things that give you a specific feeling inside, in this case showing off their underwear to a stranger is both exciting and dangerous, I’m sure that at one moment in time we have all engaged in a certain dangerous sexual situation. Sadly this little dally into sexual awakening is the point that changes the two girls lives forever.

 

Other victims of the movie are less reluctant or willing to enter into the sexual foray; one young man sexually abused by an uncle is thrown into the porn industry, working in a seedy magazine that publishes contact details for prostitutes. While others are forced into prostitution, and others are so traumatised that they find it difficult if not impossible to have sex with anyone, even those that they truly love.

 

Humour comes from the angle of the psychiatrist specifically who has issues well beyond the depths the movie allows us to see. The unnamed psychiatrist is played by one time A-Lister Teresa Russell, and she seems more troubled than anyone else in the movie encouraging people to physically fight back against abuse, encouraging them to take “final” revenge, and being so hung up that she won’t allow anyone to touch the dolls from which the movie’s title derives.

 

 Watching the movie develop is an interesting path, you so want not to get drawn into this movie but you find yourself a helpless victim pulled into the heart of the matter. And it’s not all doom and gloom, you are allowed to see the forming of the most beautiful and innocent relationships, innocent relationships founded on the background of extreme sex and deviant behaviour. It’s those innocent relationships and the characters contained that you feel most passionate about.

 

Innocence and harshness go hand in hand with On The Doll, and I won’t deny there are some fairly graphic scenes, one man is repeatedly punched in the testicles, but not as punishment, this is for pleasure; a thought that as a man and a man who has at times received sharp pain to that area actually makes me feel sick just thinking about it. And of course far worse than anything else your never far away from the subject of rape.

 

What really lets the movie down is that for 90 minutes it plods along fairly nicely, it’s not comfortable viewing granted, but it is a really attention absorbing piece. Then suddenly out of the blue come’s the scene where all the stories rather like a cogged wheel all connect together.  This connection of stories seems almost comedic, while being again painfully harsh at the same time, most of all it seems very rushed indeed almost like the director suddenly realised he needed to wrap everything up.

 

On The Doll is a low budget movie, it looks visibly cheap the greyscale imagery adding to this general feel, but beneath this cheapness are some pretty good performances from actors and actresses we are all familiar with, though not necessarily by name. If you enjoy watching movies On The Doll has the same sort of impact that Fun, Elephant, and The Kite Runner had on their various niche areas, it’s a classic movie that may not be appreciated now, but certainly will in the future.

 

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

There are movies that you have certain expectations about, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane was one of those movies, I never had high expectations, what I anticipated was a typical trash horror movie in a vein similar to the Elm Street’s and the like of the 1980’s; there were aspects I was fully expecting but for the main part it came as a bit of a surprise.

 

The title of the movie is a true aspect of the movie, indeed Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is loved by all the boys, there is something uncharted and innocent about her; and in honestly do they really love her or just want to be the first one to get her into bed. As the movie begins a show of this “love” goes tragically wrong when an admirer of Mandy jumps off the roof of his house into a pool in an attempt to impress her. A weekend away for a small gathering however takes the obsession with Mandy Lane to new levels, as the number of attendees starts to decrease potentially due to the love of Mandy Lane.

 

Mandy Lane is if nothing else interestingly shot, this is not necessarily in a good way, it’s a systematic decapitation of the movie in fact. Things start looking great with a glossy sheen, then we are drifted through what appear to be out of order scenes, slow motion shots that are almost painful to watch, and incredibly drawn out black out shots used normally to separate scenes, I say normally because here these fade outs do not separate scenes often appearing smack bang in the centre of a scene.

 

The movie is a master-class in teen titillation aiming to appeal to every aspect of the target audience, treading into known territory as well as the unknown. All of our teens are sexually active, except of course Mandy Lane who appears to be as pure as the driven snow, bless her! So having seen all of our cast in their underwear at various times during the movie’s opening twenty minutes, things quickly progress to the next level, oral sex in an outhouse being the first if you’ll excuse the pun “meal on the table” pleasure for one, upset for the other. While some of the group have not only gone missing, but been seriously devoured another one of our cast heads off to the bathroom for a little pubic trimming, thankfully indicated too but not seen. Where predictability is most profound is in the age old adage that if you have sex you die, sex and death go hand in hand and nobody lives more than a couple of minutes after a sexual encounter.

 

So I have stood firm and picked at the bones of the movie, but I need to point out it’s not all bad; there is a nice double twist near the end of the movie as well as some of the most stunning photography I have ever seen in an American horror movie. The movie takes its time to get to its heart, which is a good thing because the element of surprise is cleverly executed here. What All The Boys Love Mandy Lane does well is delivers such a surprising side story that you are drawn into a false sense and forgive the many faults of the movie, almost dismissing them aside. I can clearly see the faults, but these things are all down to personal choice, and what one loves the other hates.

 

The biggest trouble with this movie is that it requires a lot of thought, not on the story but on the aspects of putting the story together, a rewarding aspect is placed right next to something that fails miserably. A prime example being a well structured siege scene, followed by the clever escape of two of the characters; but before you know it these two characters steal a moment to pause seconds away from absolute safety to steal a kiss, this is of course a mistake that costs life. What is really annoying about this is that it’s so incredibly bad, it makes no sense, why would you run for a considerable distance with a killer behind you and then pause for a kiss when safety is not yet guaranteed. It’s this basis that drags the movie back into the incredibly clichéd world of American 80’s horror, and it’s disappointing because you think at various times that you have found a different product.

 

What I really loved about the movie was the soundtrack seamlessly moving songs of the present with songs of the past, the most poignant being “Sealed With A Kiss” that takes the movie through its final scenes. Each track is a winner, and I kind of wish there was a soundtrack album to back the movie up.

 

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is a deceitful piece of filmmaking, making you think it’s more than the sum of its parts, but when you think again there is very little to it. While I enjoyed some aspects of it, others left me appalled, however in the bigger scheme of things it fares better than most of this year’s “horror” movies which has to be worth something.