A Quick Climb to the Top of Hanging Rock Anyone?

Renowned Australian director Peter Weir’s 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock is strange and eerie, but most of all filled with mystery. What makes this scenario strong and unique is that, after all the attempts to uncover the mystery that begins to unfold in the first half hour, nothing is solved in the end, and the events remain just as ambiguous as they started. The more certain elements of the intrigue are solved, more the storyline becomes complex and puzzling. The spectator never knows why something is happening at the moment of its occurrence, and in most cases, never finds out. Questions remain unresolved, and the end... unfinished.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, an adaptation of Australian author Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel of the same name, tells the tale of three adventurous school girls who disappear after having climbed an enormous geological marvel called Hanging Rock in 1900. After a week of intensive search by policemen and hound dogs, only one of the girls is found on the verge of death. She is discovered by a boy who had seen the girls right before they started to mount the Rock. As for the others, their case remains unsolved. There are however other puzzling and unexplained occurrences that surround the main storyline, such as the disappearance of the children’s governor (Vivean Gray) as she goes on looking for them, the near death of another boy when he tries to do the same a week later, the sudden death of the school’s principle (Rachel Roberts), and the death of Sara (Margaret Nelson), whom we find out is the sister of the boy who found the first missing girl. Dreams, predictions, sounds and odd sentences and philosophies pronounced by the characters provide us with clues, but clues that in the end decipher nothing. Certain hints, however, do allow us to foresee situations, only if we remain very aware.

But why would one girl be retrieved and not the others? Why would Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), the most admired of the missing girls, really say before the trip that she "won't be here much longer"? Why do the two boys who spotted the girls before their climb become so obsessed with finding them, as if drawn to them, or to the Rock? Why are the girls themselves drawn to the heights of this Rock, more and more in trans as they move towards the peak? Why near the sight do all the watches stop at twelve? It is difficult to establish here the boundary between fantasy and reality, for the story can very likely derive from the unknown, just as it could be factual and simply full of genuine mystery. There is no concrete proof that the paranormal plays a definite role in the occurrences, but their eccentricity is beyond belief.

Although some rare scenes are a exaggeratedly peculiar and mystical, the cinematography is astonishing, and the shots meticulous and elegant. Picnic at Hanging Rock establishes a perfect balance between extremely thrilling sequences and moments of relief during which the plot progresses, and the tangles grow deeper and tighter. The scene extending from the moment the boys decide to go looking for the victims up to the discovery of one girl, was of the most exhilarating and staggering I’ve witnessed in a while. It is safe to say that Weir leaves us with quite a cliffhanger. Ha!

A World Gone Mad

There's a film that has been circulating amongst employees at the video store where I work, and that film is Network, directed by Sydney Lumet in 1976, starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Peter Finch. And now, the movie is in my hands, and I'm glad it is because I definitely enjoyed it, as did my colleagues.

Network is a window to the realities of television and media, both more obsessed with ratings than with truth, and both willing to go as far as altering the truth or straight up transforming it completely, just to get as many viewers as possible, or worse: to make the naive people sitting at home gobble up whatever junk is fed to them, characterized as "bullshit" by Finch's character. Network also shows the inhuman side of the media world and of the people who control it, obsessed and insensitive like Dunaway's character. In this case, the heads of the industry exploit a sick man to get good ratings instead of getting him the help he obviously needs, then plot to assassinate that same sick man when his ratings begin to plunge. This might be a bit of an exaggeration (the characters, the plot and the script are all embroidered and slightly blown out of proportion), but a useful one; one that forces awareness upon movie goers, news watchers and newspaper readers, awareness of the backstage animosity of this industry, but also the vigilance one must have to be able to avoid becoming a humanoid, to take some and leave some, because the media is a powerful force in which every word is man-written and chosen for a reason.

Here are the main lines of the insanely intriguing plot: An acclaimed newsman, Howard Beale, starts to get ongoingly low ratings, which leads to his eventual lay off. His  already fragile state of mind takes a shock, bringing him to announce his suicide which would take place on air, a statement after which he becomes completely insane (insane enough to see clearly) and begins to rant about the lies told by the media. His madness and illumination obviously brings about tones of viewers. Despite his need for psychological help, he is put back on air to continue on with his ranting and to get people involved with his new found clarity. Although he is elucidated by the truth, he remains a frail human being, capable of being manipulated by higher forces. The head of the channel tells Beale that he must change his usual speech and prone capitalism, non-existing democracy and dead ideology. This new lecture results in lower ratings once again. The news crew, in order to keep the madman quiet without disobeying the boss, plot to assassinate Beale, which they successfully accomplish.

The final line of the film sums up the absurdity of the whole plot: "This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings." A ridiculous sentence for a ridiculous world.

Let the Seasons Begin

I could watch Zach Condon sing all day and all night. An eccentric and beautifully choreographed video for such an amazing song.