Update
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Australia, Valentine’s Day 1900, a class of girls from a boarding school go on a picnic at Hanging Rock. When four girls go for a little walk away from the rest of the class, only one comes back. The others go missing. The film deals with the people who are left behind, rather then with the missing ones.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is not exactly made in a documentary style, but it does merely document the events that happened in 1900 (without being based on a real story). There is no judgement or revelation. Director Peter Weir used internationally unknown actors which, in my eyes, adds to the film’s realistic feeling because the viewer is not distracted by familiar faces.
What I liked most about this film is its subtlety. The class of girls are shown in a very beautiful, almost painted, way, lying on the grass in the heat, running up the Rock and interacting in an innocent way. It is all very peaceful and quiet, even though terrible, unexplainable things are happening.
Australia
There are a lot of mixed reviews about this film. But since I am the ultimate Baz Luhrmann fan, I loved Australia.
Nicole Kidman is Lady Sarah Ashly, a British upper class woman who goes to Australia to persuade her husband to sell his farm house and come back home. When she arrives at the farm, she finds him dead. After discovering how her husband had been wronged, she takes over the ranch and with the help of Drover (Hugh Jackman) brings business back.
It is an absolute epic story showing a lot of Australia. It is almost a love letter to the country. It has everything, from love, to loss, magic, travel, war and cowboys. What bothered a lot of people is that the film is a bit over-the-top cheesy. But this is Baz Luhrmann. I would have been disappointed if the film had been completely straightforward. I thought Australia was almost magical.
The Shining
Jack and Wendy Torrance (Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall) agree to look after a big hotel on top of a mountain for the winter. They don’t know that their young son has disturbing visions of the terrible things that happened in the hotel in the past. After some time, the solitude is getting to Jack, who alienates himself from his family.
Even though I am not a horror film person, I love The Shining. Jack Nicholson is unbelievably creepy and the settings are amazing. Stanley Kubrick, originally coming from photography, really has an amazing eye for shots. Everything seems so intentional which adds to the eerie feel of the film. It is definitely a masterpiece.
All three films get the MovieCat award for being outstandingly well-made films.
Tags: Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Drover, Hugh Jackman, Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Shelley Duvall, Stanley Kubrick, The Shining
January 16th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
All movies are great! A little side note on The Shining.. in one scene his wife discovers the manuscript which has a few hundred pages written with only the sentence “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Stanley kubrick had the writers type all of the pages by hand to make it look right. So I guess yes.. every single shot is fully intentional.