Chaos and Order Video

It starts off giving a very brief description of the film. It says that the film ends without solving the mystery of what happened to the girls and the teacher. It says that lack of a definitive conclusion opens the film up to 'binary divisions' such as the difference between Michael and Albert's social status and order and chaos.

The school stands for order and British culture. The landscape represents chaos. One image shows the manicured lawn vs. the harsh scrub. The school represents routine, structure and order.

At the rock time seems to enter a sort of haze. Hanging Rock itself represents chaos. The movie then defines chaos and order. The film follows the descent of order (the school) into chaos (what happens at the rock.)

Corsets represent the stiff British origin of the girls and this begins to be cast off when the girls later remove their shoes and socks at the rock. The video notes that Irma, the girl who survived, shows how things changed. At the rock she was innocent and in pure white; when she returned to the school before leaving she was dressed in red and the other girls considered her now an outsider and turned on her.

Another change is how Michael goes from being totally stuffed-shirt to someone more adapted to the wildness. Mrs. Appleyard goes from being another stuff-shirt type of person to becoming almost if not actually an alcoholic to committing suicide at the rock.

The film then shows a new order is born out of chaos.


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