Peter Lindsay Weir was born in Sydney, Australia in 1944 and before he became inculcated into the Hollywood style of filmmaking, he cut his teeth making films in Australia. His early works can be easily seen as part of the on-going effort among filmmakers in Oceania to develop a distinctive cinematic voice. As part of the coming-of-age of Oceanic artistic heritage, Australian artists have often turned for inspiration to the mythic and spiritual traditions of the Aborigines, which seem so evidently in tune with the rugged landscape of Oceania. The Aborigines believe in two separate, parallel streams of reality, one involving the senses, time, and the physical universe and the other a timeless and infinite domain, accessible only through dreams, visions, imagination, or occult ceremonies. If British cinema is best known for magnificent sets and costumes, Italian cinema for its eccentric characters, Hollywood for its narratives, and Swedish cinema for brooding angst, then the cinema of Oceania is claiming as its territory the world of imagination. Peter Weir, for one, enjoys nothing more than insisting that you set aside your powers of reason and dependence on logic to give vent to your imaginative and spiritual propensities. Picnic at Hanging Rock is a film designed for the right side of your brain and you'd be wise to let your left hemisphere take a nap while watching it.

Historical Background: Weir began working for the Commonwealth Film Unit in Australia as a cameraman but by 1970 he had worked his way up to director. He gained some notoriety with his second film, The Cars That Ate Paris (1975). He was becoming known as a director with a talent for haunting, atmospheric mood pieces and that reputation was solidified with his brilliant third film, Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Although this film was made with a budget of just $450,000, it was voted the top Australian film of all time during the 1995 Australian film centennial. Weir followed, while still in Australia, with The Last Wave (1977), The Plumber (1980), Gallipoli (1981), and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982). After that, it was off to Hollywood, where he has made such films as Witness (1984), The Mosquito Coast (1986), Dead Poets Society (1989), Green Card (1990), Fearless (1993), The Truman Show (1998), and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003).

The Story: The film opens in a sparsely wooded field, shot in pale, pastoral colors, while a narrator intones, "What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream." It is Valentine's Day in the year 1900 in Victoria, Australia. The girls of Appleyard College near Mt. Macedon are exchanging Valentines with professions of undying love. "I love thee for thy highborn grace, thy deep and lustrous eyes, for the sweet meaning of thy brow, and for thy bearing so high," reads one such missive. Young Sara Waybourne (Margaret Nelso) is particularly devoted to her sensuous and deep-thinking roommate, Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert). Miranda loves Sara, too, but sensing some excess in Sara's attachment, cautions her, "You must learn to love someone else, apart from me, Sara. I won't be here much longer." All the adolescent students of Appleyard College are filled with a diffuse kind of wonder and yearning, too untamed to have formed into specific desires.

This is to be a special day. The school has scheduled an outing – a picnic at Hanging Rock, which is a ledge of volcanic rock formed from an eruption of siliceous lava some one million years ago. All the girls will be going except Sara, who must stay behind for failing to memorize a poem (by Felicia Heymans) that Mrs. Appleyard had assigned, preferring to write her own instead. Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts), the stern and autocratic headmistress warns the girls about the venomous snakes and poisonous ants, but allows that the girls may remove their gloves once the drag (wagon) has passed through the village. The dozen or so young ladies are accompanied by Mr. Hussey, the wagon driver, and two of their teachers, Miss McCraw (Vivean Gray), the scholarly geometry teacher, and Mlle. De Poitiers (Helen Morse), the warm-hearted French teacher. The girls are filled with wonder and excitement as they imagine that the great ledge has waited one million years – just for them! Arriving at the base of the ledge, they lounge about, share a Valentine Day cake, and read love poems.

Not very far away, an English family is enjoying a picnic, as well. Michael Fitzhubert (Dominic Guard), a young man, is there with his uncle, Colonel Fitzhubert, and his aunt. Also with them is a servant, Bertie (Martin Vaughan), who is about the same age as Michael. Michael spends some of his time chatting with Bertie, making a sincere effort to overlook the distinction in their social classes. Back at the base of Hanging Rock, Mr. Hussey's watch stops, at precisely noon. Miss McGraw notices that her watch has stopped as well. Miranda, however, declares that she doesn't wear her watch anymore because she can't stand it ticking above her heart.

One of the girls, Marion (Jane Vallis), asks a teacher if she, Miranda, and Irma (Karen Robson) might climb up Hanging Rock, to take measurements. Edith (Christine Schuler), who is a bit chubby and a complainer, demands to go along as well. As they walk slowly along the trail, Miranda turns back and waves delicately to Mlle. de Poiteirs, who comments to a neighbor how much Miranda reminds her of the Botticelli angel she is perusing in her art book.

The four girls cross a stream, not far from where Michael and Bertie are chatting idly. The girls don't notice the lads, who are at a distance, but the lads surely notice the prissy young ladies. Edith passes first and is declared chubby, by the young men (softly to one another), but the other three are acknowledged to be "real lookers." Bertie offers a more explicit observation, "Oh, she'd have a decent pair of legs, all the way up to her bum." Michael, being more proper, replies, "I'd rather you didn't say crude things like that." Bertie retorts, "Oh, I say crude things, you just think 'em." Michael decides to follow the girls for a bit.

Hanging Rock is an impressive knob of weather resistant volcanic rock, sculpted into forms by a million years of wind and rain. Portions of it look like giant monoliths rising up from the volcanic mass. Other places, the ledge gives an impression of forms or faces or gargoyle like carvings. Hollow indentations resemble eye sockets. As the four young ladies approach the ledge, we hear the swell of choral music, seemingly signifying that they've come to a place of profound spirituality. As they climb higher, the girls amble through crevices in the ledge, which form narrow passageways. The girls are experiencing a dizzy sense of wonder and freedom. They sit down and remove their shoes and socks – all except Edith. Lagging a bit behind, she wonders, "Where in the world are they going without their shoes?" Marion stops to stare down at the rest of their group far below, imagining that they look like ants. "Surprising the number of human beings who are without purpose," she says. They come to a flat ledge beside a particularly inviting crevice. Miranda declares, "Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place." "Look," she adds, "pointing to a pair of hollow indentations that have an ocular appearance. Three large pillars loom above them and the four girls lie down, as though in a daze. A lizard scoots by the recumbent ladies. After a few moments, the girls awaken and three of them walk into the crevice, as though in a trance. Edith screams and runs down the return trail. Back at the picnic site, Miss McCraw, who has been studying a geometric theorem relating to arcs and angles, is beginning to worry. It's late and the girls are nowhere to be seen.

When the horse-drawn wagon finally returns to Appleyard College, it is late and poor Mr. Hussey has to deliver the terrible news to Mrs. Appleyard. Three of the young ladies are missing, as well as Miss McCraw who went off to find them. Soon, the local police are involved and a search party is organized, but even the bloodhounds can't turn up anything or anyone. A doctor examines Edith, who made it back to the group at the picnic site and the school. She has not been sexually molested but she has no memory of what took place or why the other girls are missing. Later, she recalls having passed Miss McCraw going up the hill as she was coming down. "She was funny," says Edith. Miss McCraw, it appears, had been wearing her pantaloons, but no skirt.

In the days ahead, the police question everyone, including Michael, who was the last to see the four girls, as they passed by. Michael is obsessed with the missing girls, especially the beautiful Miranda, who had seemed like a vision to him, when he had briefly spied her. From time to time, he imagines that her essence has been transformed into a swan. Michael decides he must return to Hanging Rock to search for the girls. Bertie, though reluctant, agrees to join him. Michael and Bertie get separated, so Michael leaves a trail of paper attached to tree branches. At the flat ledge, he imagines that he hears the voices of the lost girls and fragments of their last conversations. Michael descends into the crevice where the girls disappeared.

Bertie, following the paper trail, discovers Michael in a stupor, with a gash on his forehead. Bertie calls for help and carries Michael down the trail, placing him in a waiting carriage on the roadway near the base. Michael hands Bertie something clasped in his fist – a fragment of dirty lace. Bertie races back to where he found Michael and now finds Irma, at the mouth of the same crevice. Irma is taken to convalesce at the home of Colonel Fitzhubert. Other than shock and exposure, she's remarkably healthy, though she was lost for an entire week. She has some scratches and her fingernails are torn and broken. She, too, has no recollection of what happened and her corset is missing.

Back at Appleyard College, the girls are elated that one, at least, of the missing girls has been recovered. All except Mrs. Appleyard. She's received notice already that three of the girls have been withdrawn from the school, due to the scandal, in addition to Irma and the two who are still lost. Later, Irma briefly returns to the schools, but her classmates attack her brutally, angry because she won't or can't say what happened to the other girls.

SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP TO THEMES TO AVOID.

Mrs. Appleyard also has to deal with parents who are in arrears in their payments. Sara's guardian hasn't made payment for six months. Sara and a brother Bertie (from whom she is now separated) grew up in an orphanage, but Mrs. Appleyard insists that she's not running a charity. Sara is in poor health, but Mrs. Appleyard expels her anyway. Sara, still mourning the loss of Miranda and missing her brother, leaves on her own, refusing to wait to be returned to the orphanage. Later, she is found dead in the greenhouse among the pansies. Meanwhile, at the residence of Colonel Fitzhubert, Bertie tells Albert about a disturbing dream he had. He had seen his kid sister and had smelled a powerful scent of pansies. The school year ends and Mlle. de Portiers bids a tearful au revoir to the young ladies as they head home for the summer. Mrs. Appleby, shaken by the impending financial ruination of the school and the death of Miss McCraw, is soon found dead at the base of Hanging Rock, after what is presumed to have been a climbing accident. No trace of Miranda, Marion, and Miss McCraw is ever found.

Themes: Picnic at Hanging Rock is designed to raise metaphysical issues that accord with the Aborigine view of a supernatural plane separate from ordinary physical reality. The film is presented like a conventional mystery or thriller, in some respects, tempting viewers to seek rational explanations for what transpires, as we are trained to do in such films, as though we were sleuths like Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was famous for his powers of deductive reasoning and none of his "solutions" to cases resorted to supernatural explanations. The present movie intentionally presents the facts in such a way as to defy rational explanations. As stated by the gardener, in one scene: "Some questions have answers; some don't." The character Edith is provided as an example of someone who is chronically confined to one plane of awareness. She declares, at the picnic site, "Except for those people, we might be the only living creatures in the whole world." Then the camera zooms in on a huge community of ants devouring the remains of the Valentine Day cake. Miranda, by contrast, is an angel in tune with Dreamtime. She has stopped wearing her watch because it tended to exert more temporal order on her intense spiritual yearnings than she could abide.

Weir is inviting you to let your imagination run wild, in deciding what happened, rather than trying to reason it out. Once you give vent to the creative powers of your imagination, you'll find any number of possible solutions involving supernatural agencies: aliens, earth spirits, white slave traders, vampires, etc. If you read a dozen reviews of this film, you'll find a dozen different explanations, because the "explanations" stem from each writer's imagination. One reviewer resorts to a Dracula explanation and another sees the film entirely in terms of repressed lesbian desires. For another, the film is all about Freudian psychosexual symbolism. Weir has created a cinematic version of a Rorschach inkblot onto which each viewer can attach his or her own projections.

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a metaphysical thriller, not a detective story. The film raises several thematic issues, all of which could be loosely categorized as belonging to the dichotomy of order vs. chaos or finite human systems vs. the infinite. Mankind, especially its "civilized" segment, feels an obsessive need to impose structure on the natural universe, to improve our sense of security. That need for structure includes (1) the class structure by which we maintain social order; (2) rational scientific efforts to understand the universe in which we live; (3) the legal system by which we suppress our criminal tendencies; (4) morality and social propriety by which we control our sexual urges; and (5) financial solvency by which we assure provision for our material needs. Picnic at Hanging Rock declares foolish and insufficient all of those efforts by mankind to assert dominion over nature.

The class issue is raised in several ways. Bertie expresses his sexual thoughts, but Michael represses his. The only characters, in the film, that satisfy their sexual needs overtly are Minnie, the maid, and Tom, the handyman. Sara is treated badly by Mrs. Appleyard and, ultimately, ejected from the school because of her lower class status, as an orphan. Michael circumvents class restrictions, to an extent, by forming a friendship with Bertie, who is well beneath his social standing, and it results in a valuable cooperative effort between the two, leading to both Michael and Irma being rescued off Hanging Rock.

The young ladies at Appleyard College are awash in nebulous yearnings and passion for love and life. No amount of corsets and gloves, rote memorization, queues, or Mrs. Appleyard's rigidity can fully suppress the youthful exuberance of these girls. Given enough time, Mrs. Appleyard (and the rigid Victorian standards that she represents) might very well destroy the imaginations, longings, and joie de vie of some of these young ladies, but not yet. Picnic at Hanging Rock suggests that we might all be better off being a little less up-tight and proper and more tuned in, instead, to our inner yearnings. For all Mrs. Appleyard's efforts to subordinate humanistic concerns to ladylike propriety and the financial solvency of her school, chaos has asserted itself and brought her rigidly regulated domain crashing down.

According to this film, rational efforts to explain events are doomed to fail because the deeper, spiritual level, which the Aborigines call Dreamtime, is governing much of what happens. Bertie sees his sister in his dreams and smells the strong fragrance of pansies, just as Sara expires among the pansies in the greenhouse. Rational explanations also prove insufficient in relation to the missing women. Hanging Rock, in its primordial majesty, has destroyed the prim and proper order that mankind would insist upon, by imposing more fundamental truths.

Basically, the story of this film plays the same role in relationship to the Aboriginal view of parallel dimensions that claimed miracles play in relation to Christianity. Although the film implies that the story was based on a real event, it was not. The screenplay was an adaptation of a novel (with the same name as the film) by Joan Lindsay, published in 1967. Lindsay's manuscript for the novel had eighteen chapters, but the publisher decided that it would sell better with the omission of the last chapter, which provides the story's resolution. So, even though the film is designed to have no resolution and the book was published that way as well, it is possible to discover what the author had in mind. The suppressed 18th chapter was published in 1987 as The Secret of Hanging Rock. If you prefer not to know that resolution, skip the next paragraph.

SPOILERS AHEAD, FROM THE NOVEL USED AS THE MOVIE'S SOURCE. SKIP TO PRODUCTION VALUES TO AVOID!

The first few of these events contradict the movie's particulars in small ways. Edith runs off as the girls proceed through the dogwoods. Irma comments that the people below look like ants. As the remaining three girls pass the monolith, they feel some supernatural force trying to draw them into the crevice. They feel faint and lie down. When they awaken, Miss McCraw arrives, wearing her pantaloons, but no skirt. Miranda loosens the ties on Miss McCraw's corset; then, the girls also remove their own corsets. When they toss their corsets over the cliff, the corsets inexplicably hang in midair. Miss McCraw, who you'll recall is a mathematical and scientific wiz, seems to understand what is happening and becomes elated. They now see a "hole in space" (what would be called a wormhole in the Star Trek series, I suppose), that connects to another, mystical dimension, where all mysteries of life are revealed. A snake suddenly appears on the ground and darts into a small crevice in the rock. The girls want to follow the snake but are too large. Miss McCraw declares that she'll go first, and transforms into a lizard. Marion and Miranda do so as well and quickly follow their teacher. Before Irma can follow, however, a large boulder tips over and blocks the crevice, and she is left behind, frantically clawing and scratching at the rock trying to reach her friends.

Production Values: The script is ingenious for its intended purpose. As a conventional thriller or detective story, it would be an utter failure, but as a metaphysical thriller, it does what it set out to do. By presenting itself as if it were a detective story, the film invites viewers to try to reason their way through to a solution. By denying that solution, the film then forces viewers to exercise modalities of mentation other than reason – such as imagination. Relatively few other films have been so well designed to lead to a sense of bafflement, but three of the better ones are Akira Kurosawa's Rashômon, Alain Resnais's Last Year at Marienbad, and Antonioni's Blow-Up.

Weir proves, once again with this film, to be a master of mood and atmosphere. First, we feel to our cores the poetic romantic yearnings of the young virgins of Appleyard College. Later, we feel the seemingly animate power of the monoliths at hanging rock. Cinematographer Russell Boyd fills almost every frame with bright period detail and metaphysical symbols. Viewers begin to sense that the pre-sexual yearnings and fantasies of these young ladies are fated to merge with the primordial potency of the volcanic protrusions at Hanging Rock. Gheorghe Zamfir's soundtrack adds to a sense of ethereal timelessness, with a combination of haunting pan flute music and resounding chorales.

The Australian Film Institute nominated several of the cast members of this film for awards. Helen Morse as Mlle. de Portiers was so honored as well as Anne Lambert as Miranda and Tony Llewellyn-Jones as Tom. There are so many co-equal performances in this film that it is difficult to single out some over others. I thought the most outstanding performance belonged to Rachel Roberts as the severe Mrs. Appleyard. Rachel Roberts appeared elsewhere in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), This Sporting Life (1963), O Lucky Man! (1973), and Simone (2002). The beautiful Anne Lambert later appeared in The Draughtsman's Contract (1982). Vivean Gray, who played Miss McCraw, also appeared in Weir's next film, The Last Wave (1977). Dominic Guard, who was very effective as Michael, previously appeared in The Go-Between (1971).

Bottom-Line: The Criterion DVD provides a magnificent digital transfer and the full director's cut, along with a theatrical trailer, liner notes by Vincent Canby, and English subtitles for the hearing impaired. This is a highly creative film that draws on the mythic qualities of the rugged Australian landscape and the Aboriginal system of thought to form the beginnings of a unique Oceanic form of expression in cinema. I highly recommend this film to every serious student of cinema.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older