MovieChat Forums > Picnic at Hanging Rock (1979) Discussion > Parable of Lost Innocence?

Parable of Lost Innocence?

posted 11 years ago by HijodelCid
7 replies | jump to latest

What would motivate such an interpretation? Please forgive my testiness, but I am considerably weary of those commentators who take that angle whenever a story about school and college is discussed. There is already the startling hint that Miranda and Sara are lovers, and the fact that the two servants are indeed having an affair; does it follow from that that Appleyard College is a Victorian Peyton Place of dark disturbing sex?

God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)

[–] ColtGanloso 11 years ago

Mate, how many threads have you started in here, going for the world record?:p In answer to your question: the fact that the two servants are indeed having an affair; does it follow from that that Appleyard College is a Victorian Peyton Place of dark disturbing sex? I think you're adding your own subtext here - which is fine. But If there were indeed any, shall we say relations between the girls, I would hardly think that such actions would be deemed dark and disturbing? maybe in Victorian times, not now.

[–] HijodelCid 11 years ago

In my Colegio Espiritu Santo HS--1968-1972--, I was hopelessly in love with all of the coeds, but I was so neurotically shy that I did not dare to approach any of them; indeed, when they smiled at me with their open innocent faces I felt very ashamed of my desire for them. One of them looked like Miranda, and another like Edith.

God is subtle, but He is not malicious. (Albert Einstein)

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] nephihaha 11 years ago

I don't think Miranda and Sara had any physical aspects to their relationship a all by the way. (I imagine some folk might like to think they did and turn the film into a porno, but their reactions to the bulges and clefts of the rock suggest a kind of ignorance as well as innocence.)

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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!

[–] lazarillo 10 years ago

It's interesting how everything always seems to get interpreted in terms of sex and sexual penetration. I don't think the girls lose their innocence at all--they just melt back into nature, virginal and "intact" (as does one teacher who may not even be a virgin).

I think the girls are just beautiful mysteries or even metaphors. They might REPRESENT lost innocence, but it's the lost innocence of the male characters and of the other girls left behind. Even the guy who ends up with Irma when she chooses to return is always going to be haunted by Miranda.

[–] nephihaha 10 years ago

There is *a* sexual element, but there are many other things:

* Maturity - set at the beginning of independent Australia, and the
girls are discovering grown up life - not just sexual aspects. That's
loss of innocence.
* Colonialism and incongruity
* Timelessness
* Nature vs civilisation
* Unsavoury hints of violence and murder which intrude on their lives

And may I make another suggestion? I think the girls will lose some freedom when they leave the school and marry.

Lost children are a recurrent theme in white Australian literature since the first days. The idea that people can and do go missing is terrifying in a way. There is a sinister sense that the girls are being watched, but by what? That's the question - maybe us ourselves, which makes it more sinister.

Note the odd contrast in the title - picnic (cosy, arcadian) and hanging (which brings execution to mind).
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!

[–] hugobolso-1 8 years ago

Not Miranda was 17 and Sarah 13.

I don't think there was lesbian relatioshion between Miranda and Sarah.-
However there is a homoterism subject in the novel, that was exploted by Weir, influenced by the European Soft porn from the 70s, or with femele homoterism, that is even older Mädchen in Uniform.
Any thougth