Weir(d) Australia: Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave

The article can be found: here.

The main points of this article include:

There might be a relationship between cutting the last chapter of the original book, the film, and the foundation of the Australian film industry.

Hanging Rock can represent the darkness at the heart of white civilization.

The bush reminds white Australians how they are not truly at home there.

The way the Rock towers over Appleyard College represents a projection of white Australian's fears of the other.

There are clues in the film that the Michael character raped and killed Miranda.

There's more on the subject of the white savior and a primitive rapist.

There's some about Michael's dreams and how they relate to a desire to return to his originary mother and a fear of castration.

The cave in the rock represents a sexual allure for Michael.

Mrs. Appleyard's warning about the venomous snakes in the area is a sexual metaphor.

The Aboriginal landscape represents a pagan masculinity in relation to the virginity of the girls.

The girls enter the rock and are returned to their primordial mother.

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