the audience applauded

Absolutely Fantastic

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Blistering performances.

Director Peter Weir creates a dreamy feeling to this mystery of the disappearance of three schoolgirls and a teacher during a picnic at Hanging Rock, Victoria in 1900, and that's probably the key to really enjoying this film, soaking up its atmosphere. I liked the ambiguity of it all, as well as the little Victorian age touches, communing with nature and reading poetry. However, as a whole, it seemed a bit like a made-for-TV production, amateurish in places, and melodramatic in others. The whole point, of course, is that horror is more intense when it is unseen and unknown, and, like others, I see the film as a forerunner to 'The Blair Witch Project'. It was harder to appreciate moments when character actions seemed illogical or the film left loose ends dangling. It's telling to me that the original book explained the events in a very silly way (google it), but author Joan Lindsay's editor had that chapter removed. The film is entertaining, but it didn't live up to its acclaim for me.

This film is certain to yield many varied interpretations, primarily because it doesn't give any answers. A class of Victorian-era school girls take a day trip to Hanging Rock - a large rock formation shaped by volcanic activity in the Australian countryside. They idle about in the forestry before a group of four wander off alone and climb to the peak, but only one comes back, and what's more, one of the staff members, who ran off on her own, also disappears. The search for the missing is taken up by the police, along with two men who were present at the time of the disappearance - one English upper class, one Aussie working class, with their vernacular completely at odds with each other. The girls can not be found, and while the search continues, we spend time learning the backstories of various other characters inside the school - from the headmistress, to the pupils, to the gardeners and the maid. The unsolved disappearance shrouds each male character a suspect, and every single character a great mystery that might reveal an important piece of the puzzle, despite seemingly being caught up in their own unrelated troubles, such as money to pay the school fees, and poetry recitals. The first half of the film is youths romantic allure, a teenage girls optimism. The second half is a discovery of the pain residing underneath the perfectly manicured surface, with the journey into the rock a symbolic representation of passing from one to the other - a child to adult. The great anticlimax however, is that the case remains unsolved.As it is not based on a true story, this irresolution is not an unfortunate by-product of real life events, rather a purposeful artistic decision, and it becomes clear we are watching not a detective story, but an art film using the story telling techniques of one, in order to maintain suspense. We are hoodwinked. The clues given to follow the crime - clocks stopping at 12, scratch marks on hands yet not body - are simply red herrings. Sherlock Holmes could not unwind it, because there is nothing to unwind. The clues were never intended to lead answers, as opposed to narrative tools taking us from A to B, and if you're anything like me, to be purposefully mislead under false pretences does not leave a good aftertaste.If we are to take a figurative rather than literal interpretation of this film, we can find meaning in the symbolism used. Based on a novel, the author Joan Lindsay was an artist before she was a writer, and from the framing of shots to the constant symbolism, this film is reminisce of an old oil painting in motion. The three girls who are lost to the rock are seen removing their shoes and stockings moments before their disappearance, while the missing teacher was last seen in her underwear - shoeless. Meanwhile, the only girl to come back from the rock did not remove her shoes or stockings. In artwork, the removal of shoes was commonly symbolic for sexuality - the undressing - which is as sure a sign as any that their disappearance is metaphoric for the loss of virginity. The somewhat phallic looking rock becomes the representation of man, and set on Valentines Day, the film depicts the dangers women face when wandering into this wild new territory, and leaving their protected innocence behind. For the older staff member, who had previously described volcanic eruption as though male ejaculation, it may represent a lifetime of repressed sexuality, as others have commented.It is beautiful to look at, from the casting to the costumes, and the juxtaposition of those characters and costumes against the bright Australian bushland. The old masterwork paintings are some of the most terrific images created, and not enough films share their influence. It also sounds terrific, with the constant and varied bird chatter, to the foreboding ticking of clocks, classical music, and a haunting otherworldly pan flute. The camera movement is at times languid, ebbing and flowing between characters and their surroundings, soaking up the atmosphere. It is the epitome of the 70's. All hazy images, dreamy vibes, mythic, nature based philosophy, that was just as likely (or more) to have stemmed from the herb than the library. It is a very complex and indirect way for one to express themselves, and likely to appeal those more concerned with feeling than logic.If Picnic at Hanging Rock proves anything, it is the power of mystery. It may frustrate the heck out of our rational minds, yet leaves an enchanting impression. Finding it better to watch than to think about afterwards, to me it is a picnic that probes the tastebuds, but does not fill the stomach.

The schoolgirls of Appleyard College are led by the angelic Anne- Louise Lambert, and seem to be at a blossoming age where in the absence of boys furtive glances are cast all around, giggles and valentines litter their conversations, and their beauty already drawing the notice of older men. And if you did not spot these signs, what about the tremendous Hanging Rock, jutting out of the ground with a towering phallic presence, every curve and jagged edge suggestive to the teenage mind. But under the iron-fisted rule of headmistress Mrs. Appleyard this trembling sensuality has been repressed - the Victorian-era dress code and manner of speech take this a step further. They are well trained and versed in the arts, uttering Poe and Shakespeare dreamily and somehow, appropriately. The film is at its mesmerising and hallucinogenic best when it discourages reason and logic, and simply lets the girls wander wherever their young minds and bodies take them. Weir superimposes the erratic flight of the beasts of the air on the girl's faces, and dissolves barren landscape on barren landscape. Static closeups of leftover food teem with insect and scavenger life - in the soundtrack, their buzzes become an unshakable presence in the background, serenading the untamed wilderness. And when the girls arrange themselves on the top of Hanging Rock in a formation that suggests an otherworldly, supernatural influence, the screen shimmers visibly in the heat, sweaty and hazy with perspiration and mystery. But it loses its power after that initial encounter with Hanging Rock, where it switches back to the students and teachers remaining, all of whom are desperate to solve the puzzle. The soundtrack, consisting mostly of a piercing, ethereal pan flute and a section where it turns demonic and foreboding as they make their way up the cliffs, loses it potency with each subsequent visit. What Weir wants to achieve is an atmosphere that displaces all rational explanation, as if the Australian outback was beyond the reach or understanding of humans and is reclaiming those children for itself. But he cannot resist dangling clues that inevitably spur investigation and theory; Miranda's strangely prophetic "I won't be here much longer", the single corset found at the scene of the crime, the doctor outlining all the physical injuries on Irma's body in meticulous detail as if to say 'pay attention', and the strange, additional disappearance of Miss McCraw which does not amount to much. These details, which are spoken of plainly in that English dialect, and discussed not in the outback, but in the boring grey interiors of the school, are of course not given any closure. The audience is supposed to be hypnotised and transfixed by the Hanging Rock and its grasp, but every time we switch back to the edges of civilisation their power is suppressed once more. And then in the vague, unrewarding ending that has many viewers frustrated, Weir quite deliberately conceals. He places the camera within that uncanny crevasse, peering out at a hesitant Michael inching towards it. It tilts down agonisingly to reveal Irma's body, and zooms in to show the horror on his face - and she of course conveniently cannot remember a thing about what has transpired. It never even thinks of revealing the other side, and the film becomes bewildering rather than enigmatic.

The film seems to be a simple story of a group of students going to a rural picnic in Hanging Rock (a lava geological formation with rock pinnacles).But the movie goes far beyond.It's pure existentialismBehind the usual situations, seems to be a mysterious power operating on the girls (and on the viewer) whom are dragged into an eerie maze. The perceptions begin to experience relevant changes. Everything feels differently: comments and opinions do not seem to come from any teenager girl, but from an ancient wisdom knowledge related with spiritualism and non-dualism. For instance:-Marion:"A surprising number of human beings are without purpose, though it is probable that they are performing some function unknown to themselves".-Miranda: "What we see and what we seem are but a dream, a dream within a dream".-Miranda: "Everything begins and ends at the exactly right time and place".They seem to have entered into a dreamland dimension, suspended in time. An ethereal energy which makes all acts are led by a high level of awareness and absolute sense of freedom.However, according to Sara, Miranda predicted her own fate: she would not return. So she could have had a prior intuition about her predestination. Her ethereal mood, mystery and beauty are perfectly portrayed by Anne-Louise Lambert.We have a story in which fate and power of nature are intertwined. In the end, the most relevant fact is the feeling that remains in some viewers long after having seen the movie: the feeling of void, nothingness, the inexplicable, the beyond...10/10