Picnic at Hanging Rock

In the year 1900 in Australia, a group of girls from Appleyard College, which seems to be little more than a bourgeoisie finishing school, go on a picnic to Hanging Rock, a beautiful, and craggy geological formation on the edge of the bush. Several students and one of their teachers vanish without a trace. This story is rumored to be based on truth, but as far as I can tell, it is entirely fictional.

In the novel upon which Picnic at Hanging Rock is based, the author actually included an explanation of what happened to the girls who disappeared. When it was published, this piece was left out because the story is so much stronger without it. One of the prettiest of the differences between fiction and real life is that in the fictional realm, no explanation is necessary. Real life doesn't offer that kind of poetic power. If the girls had disappeared in real life, there would be an answer somewhere, and during sweeps season, the hard-working scientists on CSI would find it. In Peter Weir's adaptation of Picnic, there is no causal explanation, no physical evidence, only speculation that the girls did not belong in the world they found themselves in, and thus, ceased to exist.

The Land That Time Forgot

I caught this cinematic gem on TCM today. To make a long story short, a group of people find an island upon which dinosaurs and primitive humans live together against a backdrop of volcanoes and oil pits. The finer points remain undeveloped, and the narrative concentrates more on lava and dinosaur wars than the explanation of why this all exists in the first place. Naturally, it is a better experience as a result.

When I say "undeveloped," I mean that there is relatively casual introduction of a theory that each living thing on this island goes through the entire stages of evolution in its lifetime. There is a quick shot of women squatting in a fountain, supposedly laying eggs, and then the situation devolves into volcanic eruption and neanderthal abduction. But who really cares about that stuff? Show me more dinosaur fights.

A Serious Man

Or as I like to refer to it: A Srs Man. That's the title for the Internet generation. This is a fairly complicated film that can be summarized relatively succinctly as a movie about the search for meaning in an entropic universe. Kind of like honing in on an elusive television signal in a vast, empty sky.

Wild at heart and weird on top

There's a long and boring story about how I saw this movie for the first time, and was really too young and inexperienced to comprehend it. I didn't quickly forget what I saw, but it was a few years before I really "got it" in any profound way. It was my first David Lynch movie. After I saw it the second time, it really clicked for me. In a big, big way. I credit this film almost entirely with my love of cinema. Well, that's kind of a big claim. But it was one of the earlier times when I was really moved by film making and style, as opposed to narrative content.

Wild At Heart

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