Rating: 
Summary: Lush Sense of Mystery
Review: Picnic at Hanging Rock is a lush, slow investigation of how we perceive reality. Slowly building up to the disappearance of the girls and their caperone, we sense we're in for a real treat.The subtle class structure is evident fairly early, if you're looking for it, and the sense of "structure, rightness, and control" that the Hanging Rocks inevitably destroy completely devistates some of the key players. Excellent flick!
Rating: 
Summary: Lovely to look at, but silly beyond measure
Review: What good is symbolism and a beautiful atmosphere at the expense of no plot or character development? I am not sure what separates this movie from other sexually-repressed "girl's school" flicks, other than pretty white dresses and straw boaters instead of halter tops and short shorts. Other reviewers mention the oppressive heat of the landscape as a metaphor for the oppression of this class-conscious, sexually repressed Victorian setting. No, it's a warning of the oppression, lethargy, and boredom you'll feel at having to sit though this nonsense. Someone should tell the screenwritter that pseudo-profound precognizant banter does not good dialog make. "Now I know - She's a Bottichelli angel." To paraphase Dorothy Parker - "Tonstant Viewer frowed up."
Rating:
Summary: Gorgeous and disturbing
Review: Peter Wier's film version of Joan Lindsay's novel is a visual and symbolic feast for the viewer; this film presents the questions but does not provide the answers, allowing the viewer to mull over what information has been given and what may be buried within the many layers of subtext. And subtext there is -- there is implicit homoeroticism between Miranda and Sarah, as well as between Michael and Albert -- as well as plenty of symbolism, which lends the entire film an almost Strindbergian quality. However, this is not meant to brand the film as the sole property of the art-house squad; the Victorian murkiness and mysteriousness make the film engrossing for any viewer. A little known masterpiece, and a must-see.
Rating:
Summary: A very disturbing, beautifully filmed story.
Review: This is a very unusual film about the disappearance of three girls during a picnic held by the very prim and proper all girls school they attend.There are no easy answers given in this story that builds speculation and mystery on top of subtile horror. A must see film. The image of a swan flying away, and camera cutting back to an empty pond, will linger in the mind for a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedium ad infinitum, avec mademoiselles
Review: "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is a beautifully shot movie about the mysterious disappearance of 4 women on a geologically intriguing exposed volcanic plug. This occurs in the first 35 minutes. It is a slow and steady decline from there on out to the unusual ending an hour later, and requires determination to stick it out. Nice score which includes the pan flute. Nice photography. Mostly pretty women dressed head to toe who use formal proper speech. I don't know what to recommend it for, though. There is no message or answers, here.
Rating:
Summary: mysterious and intriguing
Review: Australia, year 1900. A party of schoolgirls went for a picnic to Hanging Rock in the State of Victoria, on St. Valentine's Day.
Two of the girls and a teacher disappeared mysteriously on the rock, leaving no traces whatsoever.
I saw this film lots of times and I conisder it one of the best ever made.
every time I watch it, I am fascinated, subjugated by the atmosphere it evokes.
Fiction or not fiction, this is not important,the story is an inner one.
The mystery of our existence, the invisible barrier between life and death. The quest for freedom. It is a movie about moods.
The girls who disappear on the rock are, perhaps, the symbol of freedom; freedom from the oppressions of life, a liberation from conventions and hypocrisy.
Maybe they are dead, and maybe death means being free.
The film doesn't give answers, it does not want to give answers.
The atmosphere it creates is utterly magic: the slow pace, the beautiful colours, the music of Pan's pipes, all contribute to make of this film an absolute masterpiece.
The acting is superb, the girls who look really inspired.
Mrs. Appleyard, the perfect embodiment of the Victorian Age, the headteacher who seems more concerned about the good name of the college than about her pupils. All must be "dependable" for her like that small hotel in Bournemouth where she used to spend her holidays when she was still in England and her husband was still alive.
But dreams are not "dependable" and the girls live in a dream.
"Life is a dream, a dream in a dream" says one of them.
Rating:
Summary: Visually Stunning.......
Review: An extremly simple & uncomplicated plot handled so well speaks highly of Director Peter Weir. Story revolves around the disappearance of some school girls at Hanging Rock. Most of the film is spent on investigation & an extensive search party for the missing girls.....one of whom is found by a couple of boys from the outback. The film is lush with visuals that are stunning to say the least & a haunting score by Bruce Smeaton who uses the music of Piano Concerto No 5 - The Emperor by Beethoven & the ever pleasing Ave Maria by J.S.Bach coupled by Zamfir's solo panflute playing adds to the atmospheric proceedings. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: picnic at hanging rock
Review: Four schoolgirls detach themselves from a picnicking group and decide to ascend Hanging Rock. They become lost and they are searched for. It's 1900, the location is a girls' college in Australia. It's Valentine's Day. Watches stop when the girls decamp on the summit of Hanging Rock. Miranda, one of the adventuring girls, is likened to a Botticelli angel, a swan, a goddess leading an ascending train of mountain nymphs. Miranda's enigmatic, almost mythical beauty is slowly revealed, and what becomes of her after her ascent of Hanging Rock is fodder enough for any movie.
Of course, that's not what PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK is about at all. At least not in the way we've been taught to expect. I saw it a couple of days ago and I'm still trying to piece it together in my mind. Four girls do indeed leave the picnic, and some of them do become lost, but this film uses that as a springboard to insinuate itself into your thoughts. There are suspicions and suspects, but director Peter Weir, brilliantly, leaves many questions and mysteries hanging.
If you like movies with a clear and definite beginning, middle, and end, this one isn't for you. Sometimes art, like life, doesn't supply all the answers.
Rating:
Summary: bad... very bad
Review: Imagine a David Lynch film without the pacing or the special effects. This film is slow to the point of tedium. The acting isn't horrid, but it's hampered by the script. "Open to interpretation" is a polite way of saying that the film makes utterly no sense. While David Lynch can make this work, the plodding, droning pace of the film makes one await for denounment that will never come.
Rating: 
Summary: No, Peter, no!!! Put down the scissors!!!
Review: This atmospheric 1975 classic was re-cut by Director Peter Weir 20-plus years after he made it, removing perhaps 7 minutes...
Wrong!!... Some films might need a trim, but "Picnic..." was NOT one of them. For those who know and love the movie, it throws the pacing off very badly.
Directors revisiting their works years later (and changing it) is not usually a good idea. (It's almost as destructive as 1962's "La Jetee" being given a new-- and bad-- English narration!)
Leave classics alone-- even if they're yours!
(Can an original cut be found now?)
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