Rating: 
Summary: HAUNTING & ORIGINAL.
Review: There really isn't another movie quite like this Australian masterpiece of the cinema. The allegorical, ghostly, mystical quality of this movie has got to be seen in order to be fully realised and appreciated: words fail to give the viewer exactly what the picture conveys to the imagination. The plot is exceedingly and deceivingly simple: young ladies from an respectable all-girls school go on a picnic to Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day in 19OO. During the picnic, some the the girls simply disappear: they are nowhere to be found. This doesn't exactly help the reputation of the school, and parents withdraw their daughters while the classmates of the missing young women grow dispondent, angry and anxious - along with the faculty staff. Really a film in a realm all its own, it is at once, beautiful, scary, fascinating and frustrating: it's up to viewer to decide what the film is saying. The photography is exceptionally beautiful, almost ethereal. The actress who plays Miranda, Anne Lambert is enchanting (she was compared to a Botticelli angel by one of her teachers - hey, is that a hint?). The lad who searches for Miranda after she's disappeared gives an interesting performance, and the unique Rachel Roberts (she was once married to Rex Harrison & was a colourful but tragic figure in real life) does well as the very complex Mrs. Appleyard, the Headmistress of the school. A bizarre, baffling and allegorical film which was rumoured to have been based on a true story. Based on the novel by Joan Lindsay.
Rating:
Summary: unusual cinema
Review: Sure, this movie is not for everyone. It is a slow piece that focuses on landscape, music, mystery, and characterisation for its effect, so naturally some find it too low-geared. On the other hand, I first watched it as a child and found it absolutely gripping from beginning to end. The opening scenes with the chirping birds and images of the rock broken by Miranda's piercingly sweet voice and then the stirring pan pipes is as close to a perfect beginning as you can get. Peter Weir is a master of both beautiful landscape shots (think also of the gorgeous American scenery in Dead Poets Society) and of using ambient music to bring an emoional pitch to a scene. A few previous reviewers have found the film pretentious, which I don't agree with at all. It is a very simply presented film that deals with issues of class in turn of the century Australian society in a subtle manner, while ensuring that the mystery at the centre of the film is proritised. It leaves a haunting feeling after watching it, and is a film that can be viewed many times without become stale or uninteresting. I would strongly suggest giving it a go, as, if you do enjoy, you will be thinking about for a long time afterwards.
Rating:
Summary: Through a Glass Darkly
Review: Hanging Rock is neither the best of movies, nor the worst as some critics contend. It is, however, one of the most unusual (Only 1947's Black Narcissus seems comparable) . Above all, it is a masterpiece of indirection, an exercise in veiled hints, muffled voices, fleeting reference, and overarching mystery. The school's grim repressive corridors contrast sharply with nature's liberated openess. Yet there is something sinister about this sunwashed landscape of soaring spires and creeping vermin, more unsettling than the Victorian witch that runs the school. Yes, the film is pretentious, but how else are we to deal with some of life's more disturbing aspects. And though there is little real 'action' during the 100-plus minutes, the hypnotic rhythms and spell-binding imagery merge ultimately into a majestic and haunting reverie of time past. What Weir has finally fashioned is a subtly effective evocation of dimensions beyond.There is of course no real solution to the mysterious disappearance. This is a work of fiction, not of fact. Perhaps the book's author had an explanation in mind as some reviewers have suggested, or perhaps there are enough clues in the screenplay to arrive at someone's intended solution. The film's strength, however, lies elsewhere than in posing as a metaphysical detective story. Wisely, the film only suggests an occult world; it does not portray one. And that's where the power lies. There are fleeting glimpses of precognition, predestination, bodily ascension, and a Platonic realm of timeless perfection, none of which comes into full focus. It's as though we and they are peering through the proverbial glass darkly. In the hands of a lesser film maker such elements could quickly collapse into arty nonsense. To Weir's lasting credit, his style surmounts the pitfalls of questionable content by sustaining a single mood and consistent tone throughout, one that binds the many elements into a unified and evocative whole. Personally I reject the occult as fact. Still, I recognize the power of art to create alternative worlds as a lens for looking more closely at our own. And in that crucial regard, I believe Weir succeeds admirably, whatever one's views of the preternatural. Most of all, however, this is one of those rare films that makes a lasting impression on all who have seen it. So if you haven't, do.
Rating: 
Summary: Picnic At Hanging Rock
Review: I saw this vidoe a while back. I'm from the UK and I can tell you that its one of the films which have struck me the most!It has a soundtrack which I consider to be haunting and atmospheric. Its neither a horror or a chiller, rather a combination of the two. It will send chills down your spine-spooky for sure. I've watched it loads and it still has the effect!!The boarding school setting adds to the atmosphere of this film. Apparantley based on a true story. watch it!!
Rating:
Summary: A visually stunning masterpiece
Review: Few films have captured the look and feel of the Australian bush. "Hanging Rock" does this admirably. The heat, dust and dazzling sunshine of a hot summer day in inland Australia jumps right out of the screen at you. The story is a beautiful, languid mystery set in Victoria in 1900. Everything about the film is magnificent - the settings, costumes, acting and above all, the cinematography is brilliant. For anyone who appreciates good cinema and great photography, this film is one to experiance. For anyone who thinks a screen full of computer-generated effects for 2 hours constitutes good cinema, this film is not for you.
Rating:
Summary: Wowie...
Review: What a fantastic film. This otherworldly, ephemeral film is fascinating in so many ways. It is, over all, a new world versus old world film. Set in the victorian age, it pokes holes in all of the ideals that were adopted and that we still hold today. We believe, as they state in the movie, that there is an explanation for everything. Except, there isn't. Even this movie fails to give us what we want (at least at first), which is an answer to what happened to the girls. Having seen the movie, I have to say that it would have been quite a mistake to explain the goings on on Hanging Rock. The rock, and the mystery that ensues, is there to point out to the early victorians that not everything CAN be explained. The setting of Australia only reinforces this notion, as we have several shots of the embodyment of high society and civilization right next to shots of the Australian outback. The people in this film are the swans, the girls who are lost most especially, and as our tatooed orphan points out, we just can't survive well outside our cushy homes. This film makes you feel that everything is about to fall apart, that just underlying the surface there is a terrible, awful secret waiting. What the secret is is not important. What is improtant is that it can and will destroy you and those around you. This film may seem dull to some people without the brains to see what's going on and to appreciate it.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring with a capital B
Review: What a dull movie.The next time I can't sleep I'll watch this movie.Here's what the movie is about...a group of girls from a boarding school go on a picnic,they eat lunch,then they take a nap,then they get up and go for a walk,they climb some rocks,they take another nap,they get up and start walking again and get lost.Are you still awake? Then for the remainder of the movie people are looking for them but never find them.That's the whole story.Thrilling,isn't it?
Rating:
Summary: unchained from natural moorings
Review: What makes any film stick in your imagination is the overall look and feel of it. Not just the memory of one scene or another but the accumulation of images which throughout the film take on a meaning, each film creates its own visual vocabulary. And this film presents one of the very richest.
The screenplay based on the novel tells a mystery story of schoolgirls disappearing on school outing. In the screenplay the girls have their own way of talking to each other which is tinged with a romantic fatalism. The girls are imaginative creatures just coming to the age of sensual awareness which fuels the imagination even more but the victorian school education does not provide the girls with adequate outlets for their changing and restless natures. Thats when the visuals really take over. Nature has rarely been so carefully photographed as in this film. In several scenes Weir just quietly allows the camera to move from thing to thing and he really gives the out of doors world a distinct and alluring presence brimming with the energy of life in all its mystery. Weir visually explains why the girls are captivated by it after having been so long locked away in the dark confines of the school. His interior shots make that indoors reality seem extra claustrophobic and very unprivate and unimaginative, only allowing and encouraging and sanctioning a very specific and regimented kind of behaviour conforming to set laws. Almost all is told visually.
I think the real appeal of the film is that the camera is on the girls side, it romanticizes what they romanticize, it finds mystery in the same place they do. And in a way it champions their cause, and accepts their sacrifice, and martyrdom. In other words the film is made by a romantic for romantics. There is a mystic element which you can either allow the possibility for or you can interpret it as merely suppressed longings surfacing and playing havoc with unimaginative reason.
The film, made during the Australian cinema boom in the 70's, presents a beautifully filmed mystery set in period costume but the case it makes stays with you days after you see it. It makes us aware that the way we define life and our experience of it has limits and imperfections, that our wandering imaginations like nature does not respect man made laws, and that even the longest held assumptions can in a moment suddenly vanish.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, enchanting and haunting film
Review: This is a beautiful film, enchanting and haunting. I first saw this film in 1980 and although the images have stayed with me for 20 years the film still has the power to instil a strange sense of loss. This revised director's cut version actually cuts 7 minutes from the original, as Peter Weir wanted to remove any petty romances. The sound and picture quality have both been enhanced, although the green filters are a little too strong at times. We are told at the outset that some of those who set out for the picnic are never to return and the film does not attempt to solve the mystery although various clues are shared with us. The film could be a simple detective tale involving disappearing schoolgirls but the tone is set at the start of the film by Miranda (Anne Louise Lambert) who provides a voice over based on a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, "What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream" The film concerns itself with the aftermath of the disappearance and the impact on those involved with the missing girls. It shows how an apparently idyllic way of life is not what it first seems, how this false paradise is fragile and how it is shattered by the breakdown of established order. Hysteria and tensions all surface revealing the claustrophobic atmosphere of the affluent Victorian European way of life in an alien land, and exposing the suppressed passions that are the reality of life. This theme is further expressed by the virginal white dresses the girls wear for the picnic, which seem out of place in this environment and represent the stifling restrictions placed on the young girls. The layers of corset and dresses the girls have to wear also mirror the film's many layers. The cinematography is stunning being incredibly bright and sunny so that the film actively encourages you to feel the warmth of the sun. The film seduces you with the sounds of the Australian bush and the beauty of the girls, so that you will more feel a sense of the horror, as one of the girls, Edith (Christine Schuler), does. The flashback at the end of the film, poignantly coupled with the Adagio from Beethoven's 5th piano concerto (Emperor), leaves you with a sense of loss of youth and innocence. Peter Weir later recreated this impression in the final scene of his film 'Gallipoli'. I am also reminded of the effect created by Jane Campion in her early film "Two Friends", where the film ends in the past when the friendship is at its closest, to make the loss of innocence feel more painful with the passing of time and ageing. The film is faithful to Joan Lindsay's novel, though dialogue is often replaced with visual impressions and unnecessary details are excluded to maintain the sense of mystery the author intended. It seems a shame that the revised version has largely cut the scenes involving Irma (Karen Robson) and I personally prefer the original. The film is beautifully shot with haunting music, well cast and acted and tightly directed, for me it is a masterpiece of its time, and still rates as one of my favourite films today.
Rating:
Summary: An ineffable masterpiece
Review: This is the most beautiful, most hypnotic, and most moving film I have ever seen. I could praise its technical aspects -- the cinematography, the lush sense of place it conveys, and the exquisite soundtrack -- but others here have already done that. The heart of the movie is, quite literally, beyond praise. Like the most incisive of Zen parables, it conveys an insight and a mood in a completely ineffable way; any words that one uses are beside the point. I shall cherish it for the rest of my life.
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