Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975, Australia)

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a quintessential entry into the New Australian Cinema. Based on a 1967 novel by Joan Lindsay, the film tells the purportedly true story of several schoolgirls who disappear during a picnic at Hanging Rock, Victoria, on Valentine’s Day in 1900. Much of the film deals with the reckoning following their disappearance. While the film obviously owes a great deal to the first wave of modern art films of the 1960s, particularly the works of Antonioni, its iconography and style have become a true genre unto itself, easily visible particularly in the works of Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides has many clear visual and thematic parallels).

Picnic is billed as a mystery, but it might be most appropriately called a folk horror story. The horror here is not monsters, but the primal forces of the earth. From the beginning of the film, we get the sense that these Victorian schoolgirls are at odds with nature. Even the iconic image of them in their white outfits against the rocks illustrates the powerful contrast. The rock itself becomes almost a living, breathing character in the film, its presence accompanied by an unsettling drone on the soundtrack - perhaps a nod to Kubrick’s 2001.

While some reviewers at the time were unsatisfied with Picnic’s oblique approach to the mystery at hand (note Gene Siskel’s response in his review with Roger Ebert), the film has felt more timely in the intervening years. Peter Weir obviously was a great talent, as his career in Hollywood more than demonstrates. Picnic at Hanging Rock is certainly one of the most striking films of the 1970s, and it put Australian cinema on the map as a force to be reckoned with. It is a film that is easy to soak in for its visual style and atmosphere.

8/10