Picnic at Hanging Rock

The first act of 1975's PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK had me absolutely mesmerized.  Some of director Peter Weir's films do that, possess this unexplainable vibe, a dreamlike feeling that may likewise occur with the ingestion of illicit drugs.  1993's FEARLESS is another.  Weir had his first real success with PICNIC, which brought attention to Australian cinema.  The early scenes promised what the reputation had long suggested - a tantalizingly mysterious tale nominally about a trio of schoolgirls and their teacher who disappear one afternoon during an outing to the titular location.  They leave their classmates (some of whom also attended) and their small town bewildered and spooked.

Immediately you'll note the sumptuous production and art direction, which I read was inspired in part by Australian Expressionism.  Weir orchestrates one artful image after another as the young women go about preparations for the picnic.  It is Valentine's Day, 1900.  The trip itself continues the air of uncertainty and portent.  I even forgave some self consciously forboding dialogue.  I was fascinated by the speaker of some of these words, Miss McGraw (Vivean Gray), the instructor who argues the age of the geological formation of Hanging Rock with those less versed in science and reads mathematic texts while she relaxes with her tea.  Four of the ladies decide to explore the rock and its crevices.  The sun plays tricks.  They conk out, later awaken.  Are they in a trance?  Edith (Christine Schuler), the overweight girl who didn't want to come in the first place, watches her friends drift away as if into thin air.  Miss McGraw will also go missing, last seen by Edith under rather curious circumstances.

But what really happened? Author Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel was more interested in ambiguity than procedural, and while Cliff Green's adaptation generally follows suit, it also saddles the second and third acts of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK with a fair amount of melodrama and just plain hokiness.  The plight of  Sara (Margaret Nelson) plays like lukewarm Laura Ingalls Wilder.  The young men who repeatedly go back to the rock aren't that interesting.  And then...they find one of the missing girls.  But her return does not provoke must interest, either.

I think this film could've been a mystical classic if it spent a majority of its running time with the ladies on that trippy afternoon, leaving the aftermath to the closing minutes.  The can't-miss-it sexual subtext could have been expanded.  The tantalizing is-it-or-isn't-happening could've have been milked into the literary gold the early passages promised.   What remains in this flawed movie is Weir's meticulous direction and Russell Boyd's beautiful photography.