I don’t know anything about the Australian New Wave. I assume that if your country did not eventually have a New Wave, perhaps your country’s cinema is not worth discussing (although even that’s not true).
But what I did notice upon seeing “Picnic at Hanging Rock” as part of the IU Cinema’s Australia in the ’70s series was that many of the directors emerging in this period are modern day staples and C-list directors at worst. Nicolas Roeg, Phillip Noyce, Bruce Beresford and this film’s director Peter Weir are amongst the talents emerging from this period.
Their films carried one theme above all: “beautiful cinematography and stories about the chasm between settlers from Europe and the mysteries of their ancient new home,” as Roger Ebert describes in his Great Movies piece on “Picnic at Hanging Rock.”
And maybe it’s my lack of familiarity or that I watched “The Tree of Life” recently, but “Picnic at Hanging Rock” struck me as a largely spiritual film. It’s lack of narrative clarity and a stunning sense of still life cinematography make the entire film seem other worldly. Continue reading “Rapid Response: Picnic at Hanging Rock”