Picnic at Hanging Rock ('75) Director's Cut ('98)

Peter Weir’s much acclaimed dreamy, ethereal 1975 film is about a mystery which isn’t solved. Three boarding school girls go missing, along with their teacher, on a Valentine’s Day trip to Hanging Rock in Victoria, Australia. It is based on Joan Lindsay’s only novel.

This was one of our longest discussions for a while. We were so captivated.  “It’s a film you never forget,” was one enthusiastic response. “It’s aged so well and is timeless,” was another. It was “poetic and lyrical.”

We agreed that the cinematography and soundscape was impressive, communicating the power of the Australian landscape. “Nature was throbbing,” said one member of the group, alluding to the “devilish and divine” landscape.  The film was beautiful, we felt, like a classical painting.  There were some comments about swans, white turkeys and their symbolism.

A member of the group who had lived in Australia spoke about the spirituality of the sacred sites of the indigenous people. This contrasted with the strangeness, constraint and conformity of the Victorian colonialists represented in the film. The girls, in their innocent white dresses, bound up in corsets and wearing straw hats, meet the indigenous spiritual energy of Hanging Rock.

Rachel Roberts in her role as headmistress Mrs Appleyard, portrayed a tortured, bitter character, hateful towards the orphan Sara. There is also a hint that she kills the girl, but that too is supposition. We witness the headmistress’s mental health unravelling, perhaps a reflection of the decline of colonial rule.

There was some discussion about whether we need to know exactly what happened. The author of the book, Joan Lindsay, later wrote an ending, but most of us felt strongly that it was quite bizarre. The messages in the film for us included “nothing is ever what we think of things”, “nothing can ever be repressed” and “you can never tame the land.”

Most of us gave this eerie film 9 out of 10. 50 years on, it was still “completely beguiling” and certainly one you could watch again.  “A triumph!” said a member of our online discussion group.

Anne