'Long Weekend' / 'Picnic At Hanging Rock'

Post by **RobB** » Tue Jun 12, 2007 1:48 pm

Daniel might have heard of this one?

'Long Weekend' is a thirty year old Australian 'Super-Natural' film about a young couple with marriage difficulties camping out on a deserted beach.

Having accidentally run over a kangaroo on the way and then getting mysteriously lost on the way to the beach ( they followed a track that led them around in circles), the weekend gradually gets worse as the couples arguments get progressively more severe and the nature around them start to get more aggressive towards them.

A rather spooky film which I caught (like Is-Slottet) on tv late once night and live dwith the video for many years.

Unlike Is-Slottet however,'Long weekend' has received an official dvd release recently as is well recommended.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sat Jun 16, 2007 12:31 pm

I had a look at it on Amazon, seems to be a bit of a cult classic by all accounts - someone likened it to 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' and 'Walkabout', so I'll probably rent it.

Post by **RobB** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:43 am

I suppose it has the 'spooky' feel of 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' ( a favourite film of mine until I found out it wasn't based on a true event after all) but its a lot less 'dreamy'.....and 'Walkabout' (yet another favourite film of mine) does have the same sort of pace and almosphere so I can understand what that 'someone' was getting at.

Certainly worth renting.....certainly worth buying too if you can pick up a cheap copy.

blue · Post by **blue** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 2:07 pm

RobB wrote:I suppose it has the 'spooky' feel of 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' ( a favourite film of mine until I found out it wasn't based on a true event after all)

I'm curious Rob, why did that affect your thoughts about the film? It's the same film whether the events depicted are true or not.

I still find that film very unsettling, to the point where I've only watched it a couple of times. Oddly, the scene that particularly unnerved me the first time I watched it didn't seem to be there at all the second time.

I can see it quite clearly in my mind, but I must have invented it. The teacher - the woman who played Mrs. Mangle in Neighbours

- is going around picking up clothes or something belonging to one of the girls? She's got this weird look on her face and she's partly undressed .... so so creepy, I was dreading it coming up the second time I watched the film but it just wasn't there.

I worry about myself sometimes.

Post by **RobB** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:21 pm

blue wrote:I'm curious Rob, why did that affect your thoughts about the film? It's the same film whether the events depicted are true or not.

Well,thats true enough and I still can enjoy the film.
But when I originally thought that the film was based on true events,then it adds a sense of mystery that 107 years ago, these girls could walk up into the rocks and disappear without trace despite a massive search.
The whole thought of that happening in real life is quite spooky and even after the film had ended I kept thinking 'what actually happened to those girls?'

But now the film has been exposed as fiction,there's no sense of mystery as it never happened in the first place.
Fact really is stranger than fiction.

Still,its a beautiful film to watch and quite sensual.....although the thought of a partially undressed Mrs. Mangle has put the dampeners on things a bit.

I havn't watched the film for over a year so i'll have to watch it again to see if the scene you remember is in it.

Unless you watched the same dvd, its possible that you saw a slightly edited broadcast of the film the second time. Perhaps the broadcaster received too many complaints about Mrs. Mangle in the state of undress the first time round?

Should we not have had a 'Picnic At Hanging Rock' thread?

blue · Post by **blue** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 9:36 pm

Should we start one and move our comments over there?

The mystery of the missing Mangle is solved, I think - having checked on Amazon, it seems there is a 'director's cut' of the film which has several scenes excised, including the one I mentioned. This must have been the version I saw the second time. Phew.

Question is, why would Peter Weir remove scenes? Usually in a director's cut you're gaining scenes, not losing them. Very odd. The scene with Mrs. Mangle is creepy as hell and adds a real element of unease because it almost suggests she may have been involved in whatever happened to the girls. I think that was what unnerved me so much.

Post by **sound world** » Sun Jun 17, 2007 11:26 pm

Another film I'd love to see,and haven't yet managed to do so.(Picnic,that is.'Long Weekend' sounds vaguely familiar? and a bit similar to 'Deliverance' (*shudders*)
Another aspect of that film that might add to the eeriness is the inspired choice of using the music of virtuoso Romanian panpiper Gheorghe Zamfir-well,it's traditional Romanian music.
Around the time PAHR was released I went to an amazing touring exhibition of the work of Charles Waterton,a famous English eccentric who was also an amazing botanist and taxidermist.He fooled the Victorians with versions of the Missing Link,wolfbabys,pheasants grafted onto chickens and vice-versa,and other extraordinary weird animals that he'd basically stitched together from two (or more) separate creatures.The whole exhibition took place in a labyrinth of dark,hessian sacking corridors,and you'd turn a corner to be confronted by some weird embryo with goat's horns or something.Very disturbing but also fascinating,and the eerie soundtrack as you wandered along was more of the slow improvisations of Zamfir with organ or strings.

But I digress.

Anyway I did manage to get me and partner to sit and watch an entire video the other night,one of my favourite films,'Withnail and I'.

d.a.walker · Post by **d.a.walker** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:31 am

I've seen this film, though it was an absolute age ago, it is good, interesting take on nature getting vengeful....

Some other Australian spooky films worth seeing are by director Richard Franklin, these include Patrick (one of QT's favourite films and admitted inspiration for the coma sequence of Kill Bill), Road Games (a young Jamie Lee Curtis of all people is in this!) and Visitors (with the much underrated Rhada Mitchell).

Hehe speeking of PAHR I have been to Martindale Hall where the school sequences were shot, and it looks exactly the same now as it did then! If you're ever in SA then it's worth going up to see, very remote English stately home in the midst of the outback, quite strange.....

Post by **RobB** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 12:52 pm

I was going to watch PAHR last night but can't find the dvd.

I spent a good 20 minutes looking for it too.
I reckon I may have loaned it out to a friend in the past and forgotten about it which is a pain as I can't think who it would have been.

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:41 pm

I've taken a vow not to lend anymore DVDs out to people. My boss still has 'Night of the Hunter' and 'Bell, Book and Candle', two of my all-time favourite movies, which I lent her not last Christmas but the one before! I give her a dig about them every few months and she always promises to bring them in, but I doubt I'll ever see them again.

Even my mother has done this to me. I lent her half a dozen films about a year ago, that she still apparently hasn't got round to watching.

Never again.

Post by **sound world** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:41 pm

You can't do it with books,alas,of which I've lost several favourites to friends,but everything else these days,I just make 'em a copy

.
And,I suppose,the best thing is to make sure you practice what you preach.I'm really stringent about giving things back to people I borrow them from.

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:55 pm

Me too, this is what annoys me so much. I haven't often borrowed books/films/music etc off people, but when I have I feel honour bound to get them back to their owners as quickly as possible. I'd never dream of just keeping their stuff lying around the house for months on end till I 'get round to it.' I really don't understand that attitude at all.

Anyway, nobody gettin' nuttin' off me no more.

Post by **RobB** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 5:24 pm

sound world wrote:I'm really stringent about giving things back to people I borrow them from.

ah yes,that reminds me,Dave,....now about that hundred quid I loaned you?

Post by **RobB** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 3:14 pm

blue wrote:The teacher - the woman who played Mrs. Mangle in Neighbours - is going around picking up clothes or something belonging to one of the girls? She's got this weird look on her face and she's partly undressed .... so so creepy, I was dreading it coming up the second time I watched the film but it just wasn't there.

Finally found the missing dvd.....it was hiding behind armchair for some reason.

Having just watched the film again it seems my copy is missing the partially dressed Mrs Mangle scene too.
Although Edith later explains having seen 'mrs mangle' walking up Hanging Rock without her dress, the last scene of 'mrs mangle' is of her sitting on the rock,looking up,and fully clothed.

No doubt the scene which was deleted came shortly afterwards.

Having seen the film again I can see why one reviewer compared 'Is-Slottet' to 'Picnic' as Unn walking in the ice palace does have a similar effect to the girls ascending Hanging Rock.

blue · Post by **blue** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 5:30 pm

I was reading complaints by fans of the film on Amazon the other day Rob, it seems that the original full version of the film is not actually available anymore, unless you buy a secondhand copy. Peter Weir obviously feels that his edited version is better, if he wants it to be the only one available. Pity.