Picnic at Hanging Rock - Criterion Collection

Rating:
Summary: "Will You have some Scenery with your Tea?"
Review: The undeniable tension in PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK results as much from suspense over whether it will collapse into a heap of giggles as from the very self-conscious technique. Like some of Ingmar Bergman's more over wrought chamber dramas, you can never be certain whether the heavy breathing results from intention or from taking a thin situation too far. In a sense, it doesn't matter, because in this case, the intentions and pretensions cannot be separated.

This was the film that brought director Peter Weir international attention. Though not as chilling as THE LAST WAVE or economical as THE PLUMBER (made for Australian TV), HANGING ROCK proves he once knew how to use a camera. The problem is that the story just isn't up to his technique. Terribly toney, HANGING ROCK falls far short of the Poetry and Mystery it obviously seeks; Weir doesn't seem to recognize that the poetic is best achieved through simplicity, not flossy artiness. Instead, the film's best moments are textural. The sequences when the school girls gambol about the rock while poisonous ants crawl over their discarded leftovers bask in a kind of floating, pretty languor, for example. (Criterion's transfer superbly captures the film's warm, soft-edged photography.)

Even these scenes are never entirely devoid of an undercurrent of silliness, however. As things proceed, that current comes close to flood. After all the hushed innuendo, the muted hints of illicit romance, lesbianism, and old fashioned lust, you know it is only a matter of time until someone erupts in a fit of libidinal hysteria guaranteed to frighten the horses. The wall climbing arrives on cue, but while it is staged with enough control to prevent it being funny, it lacks sufficient imagination or observation to hide the mechanics. Oh sure, we get it: the trussed up girls provocatively removing their gloves on the way to the Rock; the silent, appreciative stares of the working class men they ride past; the over wound headmistress, drowning her fears in booze; the frantic search of the visiting English adolescent in "love" with the leader of the missing girls, etc., etc., etc. We've seen variations on these images of craving in crinolines over and over again. They nearly always work, but there's nothing particularly fresh or insightful about them. (At this point, the more original point might be to show that repression has its virtues.) This movie could really use a few jokes, but if anyone laughed, the whole thing might fall apart.

The irony is that the film unwittingly provides a perfectly comprehensible solution to the "mystery," that no one on either side of the camera seems to recognize. The film very effectively makes us feel the "itch" these girls are experiencing. Didn't anyone stop to think they might have gone up the mountain to get it scratched?

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Summary: All that we see...and all that we seem...is but a dream...
Review: ...It begins with the opening sequence...the girls of Appleyard College prepare for their Saturday, the Feast of Saint Valentine...and their fateful trip to Hanging Rock. Then there is the incredible coach ride to the rock...pay close attention to Miss McGraw during the ride. Then there is the departure of Miranda and the others for their exploration of the Rock...and the incredible line of Mlle. De Poitiers, "Now I know...". The ascent of the rock by the girls, paralleled later by the ascent of the rock by the boys. The most sinister moment: when Miss McGraw leaves her geometry book and looks up at the Rock...now she knows. Irma, dressed in red at the end and also knowing. Mrs. Appleyard...who already knows that Sarah is dead because she killed her. Miranda, the most knowing of all, who knows what is on the Rock. Michael, who sees Miranda/the swan and also learns/knows. This is a film about knowledge and is filled with incredible small details of great importance: notice how Edith never removes her gloves, how Edith makes her horrifyingly sadistic laugh at the recollection of the ascent of Miss McGraw up the Rock, how Sarah smiles when Mrs. Appleyard leaves her in her room...the heartbreaking scene where we see the portrait of Queen Victoria, Mrs. Appleyard's parents' photographs, etc., in the pan over her suite. "Everything begins...and everything ends...at exactly the right time and place". E-mail me, [e-mail], for the solution to the mystery of Hanging Rock.

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Summary: As Haunting as They Come
Review: Do films get much stranger or more beautiful than this? To call Peter Weir's masterpiece "moody" and "atmospheric", as Leonard Maltin does in his brief review, is to grossly underemphasize the sui generis, quite visceral impact, the lush, almost swoon-inducing power, of this flagrantly bizarre work of art. It's actually difficult to describe "Picnic at Hanging Rock" in words because there's nothing else remotely like it. I'd say that another Australian film, "Heavenly Creatures" comes closest, but that movie's cumbersome claymation fantasy scenes and decisive conclusion are so far removed from the ethereal, open-ended nature of this film that the comparison falls apart instantly. There's something so unmentionably chilling, even nauseating, in the soft-focus camera-work and the intentionally stilted performances, that I'm not even able to evaluate the technical aspects of this film. It has its own vernacular, its own code, that owes nothing to what has come before. If forced, I'd say this is a story about repression, about humanity-vs.-nature, about our own inability to really grasp the vastness of the universe in which we live. It is certainly much more than the story of three girls and a school teacher who dissapear on a rock formation, as intruiging as that story certainly is. There are ideas at work here, conveyed through camera shots, angles, brief snatches of dialogue and silent pauses that we might not even be able to discuss, because we don't have the words or the courage to discuss them. Those expecting a genteel horror story of some sort or a traditional murder mystery will be confounded by "Picnic at Hanging Rock", for it offers only questions, not answers. It taps into our deepest fears, but without ever resorting to tricks or gore. It creeps up on you and, when it is over, changes your perception of the world for days to come. I find it a terrifying movie, far more unsettling than any slasher pic or ghost tale. Its ambiguity is the key to its success. That ambiguity unnerves us because we like to have everything labelled and identified, plotted out in a rational manner. There is nothing rational about "Picnic at Hanging Rock". It opens a small crack in the abyss and then forces our imaginations to look through that crack.

Rating:
Summary: A chillingly beautiful mystery
Review: On St.Valentine's day, 1900, a party of girls from a private school set out for a picnic at Hanging Rock in the Macedon Ranges in Australia. While they are on the rock, something mysterious and disturbing happens and, when the party returns to the school, they have left three girls and one teacher behind. All missing on the rock.

Rather than follow the normal mystery rules of working towards an answer, the film concentrates on the effect of the disappearances on those connected either directly or by circumstance. What will happen to the school after such an event? How will the other girls react? What of the young Englishman who was the last person to see them alive. He is both under suspicion and obsessed with the fate of the missing girls.

This sense that the events just cannot be explained is bolstered by one of the most memorable and haunting soundtracks of any film ever made. The director really has an eye and an ear for setting a mood of something beautiful and precious which has been lost and will never be regained. The images of the outback are stunning. They convey the feel of a landscape that is both threatening and spiritual.

The film has aquired a reputation for being based on a true story. We are used to unresolved mysteries in real life but not in fiction. Despite the rumours of a real event which was mysteriously unreported, this is a work of fiction. The film was based on a novel of the same name by Joan Lindsay.

This film really is one that you should see and its beauty means that you will want to watch it many times over.

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Summary: this story is not true
Review: Please be advised that this movie is not based on fact. This is a fabrication that had people believing it was true up until the late 1980's... It is another :Blair Witch: Nevertheless it is still haunting and I have actually been to "Hanging Rock" and the place is eerily quiet and quite spooky.... A very beautiful film nonetheless with a haunting theme

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Summary: The greatest film ever made...
Review: I do not use the superlative lightly..."Picnic at Hanging Rock", a 1975 Australian film rarely screened in America, is the greatest film ever made...those who condemn this film in their reviews here all essentially condemn it for the same reason: they claim that after Miranda and the others vanish, nothing really happens...which makes one wonder if they saw the same film I did. The scene with the swan taking flight, the horrifying scene in the dance class with Irma, Sarah on the stairs in the dark, the flies in the garden house...this film is quite possibly the most frightening ever made...and certainly the most erotic.

Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: This is a great movie based on an even greater book. If you are able to,I suggest first reading the book then seeing the movie. In doing so,you may find yourself not quite so confused as to what happens in the end. The clues are there in the book and to a certain extent they are in the film. Having said this,let's continue...

This is a film about the dissaperance of three virginal girls and their stuffy,repressed teacher, who dissapear while picnicing at Hanging Rock. One girl is finally found and the others are gone forever. But gone to where? and more importantly,what happened to make them dissapear in the first place? That is the very mystery you as a viewer must solve.

Read the book,watch the film,then read the book again. Pay careful attention to what you are reading and what you are watching and the answer will come. If not,that just adds to the mystique of this wonderful film. You will find yourself haunted by this film and unable to forget it. Months,even years after seeing it you will still be wondering...What happend? If you still are unable to come to a satisfying conclusion on your own or you want to see if what you think happens is really what happened,then I have some mystery solving news for you. Get the book Secret of Hanging Rock,it is written by the same woman who wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock and was to be published after her death. The book is out there,but you may have trouble finding it. You may find you were right all along or you may find you were way off base. Either way this is a film not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Artistic Arrogance
Review: As a fan for many years of Picnic at Hanging Rock, I was extremely dissappointed with this new version. Half a dozen key scenes from the original film have been inexplicably removed, including the doomed romance between Micheal and Irma that was, for me at least, a crucial element of the original film. My own opinion is that once a work of art enters the public domain it assumes a life its own, after which the artist has no right to claim ownership over it. The whole "Directors Cut" phenomenan is ultimately just a cynical marketing tool used to rehype, repackage and in this case ruin a classic film. If you can, seek out the original(yes that word still means something!) version with the extra 7 minutes of footage. It's a much better film than this Dolby enhanced, Digitally remastered makeover.

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Summary: Peter Weir: Master of light and sounds' early masterpiece
Review: This film continues to mesmerize no matter how many times you watch it. From its magnificent use of color to its breathtakingly haunting soundtrack it is a triumph. Peter Weir was a nobody in America when he made this film. The film boasts only Rachel Roberts as a known entity and yet each performance is a jewel. Like "Dead Poets Society" and "Gallipoli", this cast is filled with beautiful sensitive young actors. Sadly, the youthful members of this cast did not go on to achieve the notoriety of Ethan Hawkes or Mel Gibson, but they are indelibly captured for all time like a fine sepia tone photograph you might find in your grandmother's attic. Like those slightly worn photos, this is a hidden treasure that should see the light of day more often. Another note: I paid a LOT more when I bought this video and it was worth every penny.

Rating:
Summary: SCARY IN A SUBCONSCIOUS WAY
Review: Sometimes late at night I find myself thinking of this movie. And I get scared. What happened to those girls? No one knows. It's a mystery unsolved to this day. There is no rational explanation. Could it be some sinister paranormal thing? What follows is a sequence of scary and bizarre events.

Director Peter Weir (The Truman Show) has created a haunting and beautiful movie out of this story. When the class go to Hanging rock for a picnic on Valentines day they fall asleep and every clock stops dead on 12. When the rock is shown to us before the girls disappear we can see what looks like human faces. Many different sides of the rock show human-like emotions. All the facial features are there. Nose, eyes, mouth. I find this pretty scary. Buy this DVD now.

The DVD is remastered in Dolby 5.1 and is letterboxed at 1.66:1.