This is a great observation.
Of course, the cool thing about this movie is that every supposedly definite and clear piece of information in it turns out to be subjective and open to reinterpretation.
So while the list of voiceover snippets seems to point definitively to a supernatural explanation for the girls' disappearance, it's also perfectly possible to think of them as a montage representing the confusion in Michael's head--and by extension our heads. It's an aural equivalent to the visual images of swans and ants and flocks of birds (which themselves recall the ancient Roman practice of divining auguries from bird flocks in flight) that Michael sees and/or imagines.
I know Michael can't have heard those phrases, but in this alternate reading, the director is giving them to us just as Michael drifts into a fugue state. (That state can itself be explained away as heatstroke.) So the alternate interpretation of the scene would be that we are falling into confusion just as Michael is, overwhelmed by the quantity and disjunction of the various unexplained bits.
I've always preferred to treat this movie's mystery like that of L'Avventura, where any one of a dozen explanations is possible, and the mixture of all of them is most satisfying--ranging from the mundane (they fell into a crevasse and died) to the fantastic (space aliens and whisked them away) to the metaphoric (the 3 who vanished were the ones least content to live in a restricted provincial Victorian realm, and so they escaped it).
If one favors the space aliens explanation (which I don't, because it's clumsy and clichéd), then Edith really did see a red cloud, and the watches were stopped by the magnetism of an invisible spaceship, or something of that sort. That doesn't explain why Miranda seemed to sense that she was going away, or, conversely, why she talked of Sarah visiting her family someday. It makes no sense out of why Irma, Michael, and Edith were not "taken," though Irma and Michael both appear to have been "called." It doesn't answer the question of why the Rock appears to have supernatural qualities of its own (anthropomorphic shapes, paths that are sometimes easy and sometimes difficult to walk, and a plateau that makes people sleepy, among other things). If there's a supernatural explanation for the disappearance, I favor something Aboriginal and elemental about the place, which the British colonials miss (and which forms the core of Weir's The Last Wave).
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leighroy1973
15 years ago
This is a pretty good explanation in that it nearly gets to the actual 'meaning' of why the girls go missing. The problem is that too many people are trying to find an explanation rather than a symbolic reading. Consider this:
We Australians (that is white Australia) has always felt a sense of unease about our continued occupation of the land and its original people. The 'britishness' of early colonial times just did not fit in with the ancient landscape that must have seemed entirely alien to a European. The country is very tough - it is drought prone, floods easily, hosts deadly bushfires, contains the majority of the world's most deadly creatures - but is also stunningly beautiful and 'epic' in its vastness and emptiness. A human feels very tiny and vulnerable in the Australian bush as it seems so very isolated. Trying to civilise the place could be considered a crime against the natural order of the continent and so - for redemption - colonial Australia has to give a sacrifice to the land, usually a child or (in this case) young girls.
One only has to look at the many cases of this in Australian literature - Matt Cameron's Ruby Moon, Paul Kelly's One Night the Moon and the morbid interest in true stories such as Azaria Chamberlain.
Just a theory but it takes away the need for actual explanation - rather this event is, and always will be, an inevitible one in Australian Literature.
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MovieFanaticGirl
15 years ago
"We" (white) Australians have always felt a sense of unease about our 'continued occupation' of the land and its original people"
We? Who's "We", mate. I feel fine about the 'continuted occupation'. I was born there, I live there. Period. Just like the "original people".
There is no continued occupation. We're all Australians. Like it or not. Get over it.
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leighroy1973
14 years ago
Well firstly Australians say 'full stop' not 'period' like the Americans.
Certainly we are now in a state where we can all call ourselves 'Australian' but this term did not come easily, nor does it have an everlasting tenure. It is something that must always be reviewed and checked because there are so many different experiences for people and so many different 'Australias'. Simplifying it into one gestalt is something we do at our peril. It allows us to alienate groups.
I am not sure that it is easy for people who have suffered, been abused, robbed, raped to 'get over it'. Accepting our past is perhaps the first step.
By the way, I am not an inner urban latte drinking blah blah. I work on the fringe in direct contact with this conflicted world. I know whereof I speak and I am aware of the emotion and feeling that is carried.
Although, thankyou for joining in the debate, feel free to reply but please be civil.
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MovieFanaticGirl
14 years ago
Being someone who is tired of hearing how "White Australians" are forever to blame for the ills of the "native" community, I was "civil" as can be expected.
It's also really not your place to thank me for posting on a public board.
And if there are "so many different Australias", what exactly was the point in calling me out on using the word "period" instead of "full stop"? I am Australian - I say "period". Get over it.
Just like other people should get over blaming "White Australians" for everything. If you're Aboriginal, and you can't get a job, and the billions of dollars that the government hand out every year to the relatively tiny number of Aboriginals is not enough to get you to pick yourself up, get an education and do something with your life, it's time to stop blaming other people.
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whatwaswillbe
13 years ago
As a total objective outside, I can say without prejudice that in this conversation, Leighroy seems like an intelligent, sensitive individual making very fair points. MovieFanaticGild, you come off as an ignorant twat. You remind me of the Republican caricatures we have here in the U.S..
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PsychoDingo
12 years ago
You remind me of the Republican caricatures we have here in the U.S.
exactly what I was thinking
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icequeen_vienna
12 years ago
The film does not provide a solution - but the book does, by way of clues. Only two of these clues are mentioned in the film, which is not much to go on.
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Geechee
11 years ago
Now I understand why you chose the name 'psycho'. It fits.
"If I don't suit chu, you kin cut mah thoat!"
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Child_OfThe_Moon
13 years ago
I am not sure that it is easy for people who have suffered, been abused, robbed, raped to 'get over it'. Accepting our past is perhaps the first step.
Of course, but neither those individuals nor the ones who inflicted the suffering are still here to be compensated or punished, so that point is really irrelevant to the continued occupation by modern Australians.
I find it rather contrary that you think simplifying the concept of "Australian" somehow alienates groups. I think classing modern groups of people based on the history of their ancestors (continued occupants and original occupants) is what alienates people and continues the alienation and discrimination of the past.
Why do you think that the classing of modern white Australians as 'Australian' doesn't have an everlasting tenure? The concept of land ownership isn't based on who got there first, but merely who inhabits the land at any given moment.
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Imdb11168
14 years ago
Im Indian, i dont know what White Australian feel guilty about. Had they not colonised Australia the aborgines would have all died by now of all kinds of diseases
even monkeys fall from trees
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14 years ago
[deleted]
Imdb11168
11 years ago
In the case of the British colonizing India, it was 50:50. Both nations gained.
We had a huge culture, and lots of wealth, and we did not need the British to improve us
But we had no strength to fight invaders, and we have always been conquered by someone or the other. The British robbed us, but if they had not come, the Mughals would have robbed and destroyed us. The British got money, we Indian's got security.
There is no shame in saying that we are a conquered people, half the world consists of passive people like us, and i think the world would be a better place if everyone were to be passive and productive
Darkness lies an inch ahead
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Chankya
9 years ago
<<Im Indian, i dont know what White Australian feel guilty about. Had they not colonised Australia the aborgines would have all died by now of all kinds of diseases >>
Ok, lets assume that the White Australian saved the aborigines. How did the aborigines survive for millions of years before they came?
<<The British robbed us, but if they had not come, the Mughals would have robbed and destroyed us. The British got money, we Indian's got security. >>
The Mughals were living in India and ruling most of India and were not invading India from outside and robbing. The were a part of India. India didnt get security, India got people like you who are incapable of understanding history and are still ashamed of their ancestry.
<<There is no shame in saying that we are a conquered people, half the world consists of passive people like us, and i think the world would be a better place if everyone were to be passive and productive >>
Whoa, I dont even know where to begin on this one. Your vision of world is inhabited by a bunch of hardworking passive donkeys. How is that a better place?
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Imdb11168
9 years ago
The Mughals were living in India and ruling most of India and were not invading India from outside and robbing. The were a part of India.
That is the single most stupid statement I have heard since I passed out of school in 1984.
The Mughals were Invaders. They were not
part of India and lived in India like colonizers.
The Mughals raped and destroyed India
from inside, if it makes you feel any better about it
I'll say that they whichever religion we belong too, we are people of a conquered race, and we got freedom only because we were eventually conquered by the best amongst the worst. Don't fool yourself, if the Chinese were ruling us they would have shot Bhagat Singh in 5 minutes and locked Mahatma Gandhiji for 5 years. And maybe your child can explain to you what your predicament would have been, had the Mughals still been ruling us.
Darkness lies an inch ahead
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Chankya
9 years ago
I'll say that they whichever religion we belong too, we are people of a conquered race, and we got freedom only because we were eventually conquered by the best amongst the worst. Don't fool yourself, if the Chinese were ruling us they would have shot Bhagat Singh in 5 minutes and locked Mahatma Gandhiji for 5 years.
To think that a bunch of English dudes showed up in India, courtesy the Queen of England, with a handful of christian missionaries to save the natives..This is the end of 2015, and we still have hear these arguments? Mock trials, fake sedition charges, Jallianwala Bagh massarce of the unarmed civilians..one can go on and on. And please, nobody got freedom because they were
conquered by the best amongst the worst
Given half chance more, they would have stayed on and sucked them dry. Just like American's sitting in all kinds of places with oil and defence interests, presumably under the illusion of giving them freedom. Who's kidding here?
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MuggySphere
9 years ago
Wow! Lost for words here. So you think it's cool to be a conquered people, and that the world should be the same. Way cool man. What a sucky vision of the world?
No wonder some indians have a built in chip on their shoulder.
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Imdb11168
9 years ago
Muggy Sphere, I am glad that my ancestors were not vicious, bloodthirsty, conquering people who created misery for their peaceful neighbours. Yes, Its not cool to be a conquered people, and today we Indians should work to make a better India, as we have a lot of positives, instead of wallowing in shame and false pride
The millions of Indians who live below the poverty line are not bothered with abstract notions of pride ( Chankyas post before me wrote something like that - which he later deleted, ) These poor Indians are more bothered about necessities and improvement in their standard of live, and in this context, all I'll say is that if the Mughals were ruling us, we would have been miserable today
And if we Indians are ( in General - in the West ) employers and not employees, why would we have a chip on our shoulder ?
Darkness lies an inch ahead
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loserkids55
9 years ago
"Had they not colonised Australia the aborgines would have all died by now of all kinds of diseases"
Do you have any evidence for that assertion?
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13 years ago
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linop90
13 years ago
They arent illegal immigrants.
Especially the ones from continental Europe.
Whats moronic is the anglo ones claiming they are more Australian than others.
Eat the Neocons.
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