Picnic at Hanging Rock

Picnic at Hanging Rock, by Peter Weir, 1975

With films such as The Mosquito Coast, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander under his belt, I've long held that Peter Weir is among the most talented and under-appreciated filmmakers in the world today. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Weir's second film, is another great film to add to that list. The movie not only put him on the map as a talent, but also made the world take notice of Australia and their then-burgeoning film industry.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is the story of a class of school girls on a day trip to Hanging Rock in the year 1900, the tail end of the Victorian era. Four of the girls wander away from the group, traveling deeper and deeper into the mountain, drawn to it as though they were mesmerized. Only one of the girls comes back. One of the teachers goes in to look, and she disappears as well. The townsfolk, in the wake of the incident, begin to have a harder and harder time keeping themselves together. No explanation is ever given to the disappearance, only tantalizing and unsettling clues. When one of the girls is returned, with no memory of what happened, it's all the more disturbing that there is still no sign of the others.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a horror movie unlike any other. Nothing jumps out at you. There's not even anything tangible for the viewer to be scared of. Instead, there's a near overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety just beneath the surface. It is a ghost movie without a ghost.

But there's more to it than that. The movie is also about these mannered, put-together Victorian people trying to keep themselves civilized in the face of the overpowering, pervasive wild of the Australian Outback. From the virginal schoolgirls in white dresses being lured into Hanging Rock by a force beyond their control (the one who returns is later seen in a red dress, we all know what that means), to the fact that the teacher is last witnessed running into the mountain in her knickers, the movie is brimming with primal and sexual overtones, with dreamlike cinematography and symbolic nature imagery throughout.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a beautiful and thought-provoking film. It gets under your skin. I found myself thinking about it for days. Peter Weir began a long and amazing career with this movie, and it's among the best of his films that I've seen. I can't recommend it enough.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders

Strange, hypnotic, surreal, unsettling, innocent. Jaromil Jires' 1970 film, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders embodies all of these things. Part of the Czech New Wave (everybody gets a New Wave!), Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a dreamlike Alice in Wonderland-esque tale of a 13-year-old girl crossing the line into womanhood and sexual awakening.

So many odd and interesting things happen in this movie that I don't even know where to begin. Characters change roles in her life throughout the story; grandmothers become mothers, boyfriends become brothers. There's a pair of enchanted earrings, a priest who is maybe not as holy as he should be. Oh, and a vampire, there's definitely a vampire, who might also be her grandfather. Or her father.

I'm sorry if that description didn't help. As I said, the film is dreamlike, and as such, the narrative is very loose, and since it has been a few weeks since I watched it, the movie as a whole is kind of jumbled up in my mind. I suppose I might be failing as a critic right now. It's a good thing I'm not making a go at this professionally. This movie is really hard to describe!

What I can say is that the visuals are all very striking and distinctly eastern European. I loved the colors and the camera work. I'm never going to forget the image of the drops of vivid red blood falling on the flower, for example. We all know what that symbolizes, right? There's all sorts of strange Freudian symbolism going on throughout.

The Czech New Wave is the same scene that produced Jan Svankmajer, the brilliant director who incorporates stop motion animation, often of such things as raw meat and taxidermied animals. Almost two decades later, he would create his own version of Alice in Wonderland, which is quite possibly my favorite of all. Certainly the most messed up version.

I would actually really love to watch Valerie and Her Week of Wonders a second time. Admittedly, I didn't see it in the best way possible. I watched it on a computer screen, on Criterion's free Hulu channel, which as it turns out, interrupts the movie with commercials every ten minutes. Not a very good way to immerse yourself into a work of beauty, is it? I wouldn't recommend it. I just loved the title so much, I couldn't resist checking it out, commercials be damned. I hope Criterion puts Valerie and Her Week of Wonders out on Blu Ray in the future and I can watch it uninterrupted on my TV. Maybe if that ever happens, I will post a much more coherent review that will make you all want to see it and you will enjoy it as much as I am failing to express.

Vampyr

The 1932 film Vampyr, by director Carl Theodor Dreyer, begins with a card that reads: "This story is about the strange adventures of young Allan Gray. His studies of devil worship and vampire terror of earlier centuries have made him a dreamer, for whom the boundary between the real and the unreal has become dim." It's a fitting way to start this film, which, like its hero, blurs the lines of reality and dream.

Vampyr follows Allan Gray, who stops at an inn to sleep. He is awakened by a strange old man in his room, who mysteriously tells him "you mustn't let her die", and leaves behind a package with instructions not to open it until the event of the man's death. Sensing the urgency in the old man's plea, Allan investigates, and is guided by shadows, independent of their owners, to the home of the old man, just in time to witness the man murdered by gunshot.

When Allan opens the package, he finds a book on vampires and demons. Upon reading this, he realizes that the old man's youngest daughter, who has taken ill, has been bitten, and he must find the vampire who has taken control of this family.

Vampyr is very dreamlike, with haunting and surreal imagery. There were times when I wasn't sure if Allan was supposed to be dreaming or not, because it felt like I myself was dreaming. The film was shot with blurry lines around the borders of the frame. It was made very early in the development of sound movies, so the talking is few and far between. It plays like a combination of a silent film and a talkie. When there is talking, it's in German and kind of muted and unclear. It almost sounds like English, but what it really sounds like to me is when someone is talking to you in a dream, and you can't quite make out what they're trying to tell you, but you sort of get their intent.

Though very short in length, the hazy, dreamlike quality had a bit of a soporific effect on me. I didn't fall asleep, but I could have laid down and took a nap as soon as the movie ended. I'm sure you're all happy to know that I stayed awake so I could bring you all this masterpiece of a review while the film was still fresh in my mind.

Some of the other great expressionistic horror films of the silent period, such as Der Golem, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and Nosferatu, really have a way of staying with you. The lack of sound just adds to the power of the images. Vampyr is right on the tail end of that whole thing, though it does have some sound, it still feels very sparse, and the imagery still holds a lot of power. This is a great movie for a late October night.