Forgive me if this has been asked before, but at what point (hour and minute if possible please) does the (in)famous 'red cloud' appear?
This is one of my all-time favourite films and I keep missing it.
"Everybody in the WORLD, is bent"share
We never see a red cloud.
Immediately after Edith screams, there is an aerial shot of her running down the rock. That shot is tinted red. Perhaps from that perspective, we are the red cloud, looking down at Edith.
I just finished watching the movie again three hours ago and in the version I saw (from Netflix), the infamous red cloud appears only in the dialogue. When the police and Mademoiselle take Edith back near the rock to jog her memory, she recalls a red cloud. There's no scene or flashback with a red cloud.
I'm beginning to think there are eerie extraterrestrial versions of this movie floating around, full of red clouds and Miss McCraw in her bloomers.
"The night was sultry."
No different versions floating around with revealing footage or anything like that - just different perspectives - watch it as an alien abduction film & some of the clues (both visual & dialogue) seem even stronger than before - although no answers ( . . . .the beauty of this film - no answers!!)
See another post by Prof. Lostiswitz
"This film DOES provide a solution (spoilers)"
Not a bad observation.
I didn't mean to call you meat loaf, Jack !
I'm beginning to think there are eerie extraterrestrial versions of this movie floating around, full of red clouds and Miss McCraw in her bloomers.
The red cloud which Edith saw is a big clue as to what actually happened.
shareIn what way, louise?
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
Think about what could happen to make a red cloud form - something entirely natural.
shareJoan Lindsay's said that the business like the red cloud and the watches stopping were just dream imagery. But if you reckon it was something natural, what do you think it was?
You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.
I know someone who thinks the red cloud was dust caused by a fall of rocks, burying the girls or trapping them in a cave.
But Edith encountered the red cloud and went screaming down the hill, and then she saw Miss McCraw running UP the hill. The rock fall would already have happened at that point. So why did Miss McCraw vanish too?
For that matter, how did Irma survive so long, why didn't the dogs detect their scent, etc.
I don't come from hell. I came from the forest.
The rockfall is prosaic, but doesn't fit some of the other details... dresses changing colour, watches stopping, people turning up long after.
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It's not "sci-fi", it's SF!
I thought Edith said she saw the red cloud AFTER she saw Miss McCraw. And maybe not RIGHT after - just later on, so Miss M could well have been involved in the rock landslide.
It is possible that Irma survived that long - she may well have been trapped and well hidden by rocks and took some time to crawl out, discsrding her corset to free herself, thus explaining its disappearance (which was never told to the police).
I don't think Irma would've survived long before succumbing from dehydration - one doesn't survive long without water in low-moisture, high-temperature conditions. It would also have been remarkable, although not impossible, if she survived a landslide without broken bones or major injury.
I don't think there's meant to be an explanation at all - the film isn't really about the disappearance itself, but about everything that happens around it.
The rockfall concept is interesting but doesn't explain how Michael ends up in a similar trance-like, me no remember state of mind, with a headwound and no other major wounds. No major trauma on Irma either and why Edith completely shut down and couldn't simply say, I saw my friends get caught in rocks. They all had total mental blocks afterwards.
Somebody was no longer intact...
share"This seems to happen a lot with films that have a resonant quality - things may be mentioned only in dialogue, but the idea remains vivid, and years later people are convinced they remember actually seeing it depicted."
Exactly so. Much like people swearing up and down that they saw the infant's 'demon eyes' at the end of Rosemary's Baby.
No such scene exists of course but people are convinced they've witnessed it!
You fill me with inertia - George Spiggott
Exactly so. Much like people swearing up and down that they saw the infant's 'demon eyes' at the end of Rosemary's Baby.
Actually, the camera cuts from Rosemary's horrified face to a 'subjective' shot of demonic eyes in a dark face filling the screen, before cutting back to Rosemary. Just then we hear Minnie saying "He has his father's eyes" - the kind of harmless, pedestrian remark that is of course deeply ambiguous, particularly in Rosemary's terrified mind. So you do see and hear things that are more than just 'suggestions', verbal or otherwise, but there is no definitive or objective shot showing the baby as a demon; the eyes themselves can easily be interpreted as a flash of what Rosemary's overheated imagination is creating.
shareActually, the camera cuts from Rosemary's horrified face to a 'subjective' shot of demonic eyes in a dark face filling the screen, before cutting back to Rosemary
This has happened to me more with this film than any other! I absolutely have a false memory of Mrs Mangle running in her underwear from top left of the screen to bottom right, disappearing out of view behind the rock, the camera would've been overhead, like a crane shot and she would've ran 30 yards or so. I would stake money on having seen it, but having rewatched various versions, the scene doesn't exist! (NB I've also read the book at least twice and, years ago, used to read this board a great deal, so conclude the scene was firmly planted from the suggestions here and there).
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