This originally appeared in the comments section of the late, lamented The Dissolve.
Let’s Dissolve The Criterion Collection!
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
Directed by Peter Weir
Written by Cliff Green from the novel by Joan Lindsey
Criterion Spine #29
Note: I wrote this using the most recent Blu-Ray edition that came out in June 2014. Completely gratuitous self-promotion on this is that I got it at the semi-annual half-price sale at a Barnes & Noble *and* got to flip off Jenny McCarthy, there to sign whatever the hell she was promoting, on my way out the door. So there’s that.
I think it’s always interesting to contemplate artists, such as a director like Peter Weir, to whom you saw their career almost in reverse. I had seen plenty of Weirs works when I was younger, such as the underappreciated Witness and the horrifically over rated Dead Poets Society, but I’m not sure I was ever really that aware of him until The Truman Show, a movie I maintain is one of the better science fiction movies of the last quarter century. At that point, I started noticing his body of work more and decided to dig in a little deeper. It’s at this point, somewhere in 2000, that I first saw Picnic At Hanging Rock.
Now, at first glance, Picnic is pretty straightforward. It’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and a group of boarding school girls (at what looks to be a fairly straight-laced institution in Victoria, Australia) are going on a picnic to the rock formation known as Hanging Rock. They go there, there is also a garden party of a older couple, their nephew and their groom, and there’s a nice quiet picnic. At which point, four of the older girls decide to talk a walk up the rock. Here’s where everything goes sideways; they go up, the atmosphere gets more and close and disturbing...and then three of them walk through a crevice in the rock and the fourth girl runs back screaming.
Cut to the school and suddenly, the three girls and one of the teachers, a math teacher (Miss McCraw) who spent her time at the rock reading a geometry text, are missing. Days go by, the remaining girl from the walk is questioned, and yet there is no sight of any of them; all she can remember is watching them walk through the crevice, running back and passing Miss McCraw who was going up the rock without her skirt. There is no other sign or clue, despite search parties and the question of the other party that was at the rock. But now the questions start piling up; why the walk? What did the fourth girl really see? Why is the math teacher missing as well and where is her skirt? Did the nephew from the other party see something and why is he supposedly so guilty feeling?
That nephew, Michael Fitzhubert, starts feeling so guilty that he goes back to the Rock with his groom Albert and ends up staying overnight by himself. He’s found the next morning, delirious and clutching a piece of lace. At which point Albert searches some more and finds one of the girls, Irma, dehydrated but otherwise unharmed. No one else is ever found.
So! Where did everyone go? is this a science fiction movie? Did they fall through into the Dreamtime? Did Michael actually have something to do with their disappearance? Why doesn’t Irma remember anything? What is with the subplot of Sara, the girl that was left behind from the picnic because they feels she’s getting too close (in a Beautiful Creatures sort of way) to one of the missing girls, Miranda? Is the disappearance of the girls the actual problem of the movie or is it just something that highlights the cracks in the facade of the boarding school (there’s constant references to losing money, girls being withdrawn or behind on their tuition, especially Sara)?
It’s that last one, for me, that seems to be the central...theme, if there is one, of Picnic. This is a movie that delights in having high Australian attempt to impose it’s mores on Australia (there’s so, so many shots of people in Victorian dress having small parties surrounded by wildlife that would cheerfully kill them) as well as attempting to impose order on teenage girls who are becoming women. The disappearances are not even especially that important as they are just that which exposes the problems of this dying society for what they are.
I’ve seen the movie five times at this point, and I’m still comfortable in being unclear as to what actually happens. It’s one of those great movies that you can take multiple ways and it may be all or some of those ways at the same time (but is not infuriatingly indecisive in it’s vagueness).
Minor notes:
This is a great freaking Criterion set. It’s one of those that also contains the novel (which apparently has been out of print in the US for a while), which I always find a really nice touch. There are also:
An extended interview with Weir from the late 1990s.
A new documentary of the making with various actors and producers.
An introduction by film scholar David Thomson.
And my favorite,an on-set documentary by producer Patricia Lovell that features various actors, Pter Weir and Joan Lindsay as she visits the set. Worth seeing if only for Weir’s crazy-ass 1975 sweater.
Also included but I didn’t get to: two essays in the booklet and Weir’s debut film from 1971, Homesdale. The Criterion Collection!
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)
Directed by Peter Weir
Written by Cliff Green from the novel by Joan Lindsey
Criterion Spine #29
Note: I wrote this using the most recent Blu-Ray edition that came out in June 2014. Completely gratuitous self-promotion on this is that I got it at the semi-annual half-price sale at a Barnes & Noble *and* got to flip off Jenny McCarthy, there to sign whatever the hell she was promoting, on my way out the door. So there’s that.
I think it’s always interesting to contemplate artists, such as a director like Peter Weir, to whom you saw their career almost in reverse. I had seen plenty of Weirs works when I was younger, such as the underappreciated Witness and the horrifically over rated Dead Poets Society, but I’m not sure I was ever really that aware of him until The Truman Show, a movie I maintain is one of the better science fiction movies of the last quarter century. At that point, I started noticing his body of work more and decided to dig in a little deeper. It’s at this point, somewhere in 2000, that I first saw Picnic At Hanging Rock.
Now, at first glance, Picnic is pretty straightforward. It’s Valentine’s Day, 1900, and a group of boarding school girls (at what looks to be a fairly straight-laced institution in Victoria, Australia) are going on a picnic to the rock formation known as Hanging Rock. They go there, there is also a garden party of a older couple, their nephew and their groom, and there’s a nice quiet picnic. At which point, four of the older girls decide to talk a walk up the rock. Here’s where everything goes sideways; they go up, the atmosphere gets more and close and disturbing...and then three of them walk through a crevice in the rock and the fourth girl runs back screaming.
Cut to the school and suddenly, the three girls and one of the teachers, a math teacher (Miss McCraw) who spent her time at the rock reading a geometry text, are missing. Days go by, the remaining girl from the walk is questioned, and yet there is no sight of any of them; all she can remember is watching them walk through the crevice, running back and passing Miss McCraw who was going up the rock without her skirt. There is no other sign or clue, despite search parties and the question of the other party that was at the rock. But now the questions start piling up; why the walk? What did the fourth girl really see? Why is the math teacher missing as well and where is her skirt? Did the nephew from the other party see something and why is he supposedly so guilty feeling?
That nephew, Michael Fitzhubert, starts feeling so guilty that he goes back to the Rock with his groom Albert and ends up staying overnight by himself. He’s found the next morning, delirious and clutching a piece of lace. At which point Albert searches some more and finds one of the girls, Irma, dehydrated but otherwise unharmed. No one else is ever found.
So! Where did everyone go? is this a science fiction movie? Did they fall through into the Dreamtime? Did Michael actually have something to do with their disappearance? Why doesn’t Irma remember anything? What is with the subplot of Sara, the girl that was left behind from the picnic because they feels she’s getting too close (in a Beautiful Creatures sort of way) to one of the missing girls, Miranda? Is the disappearance of the girls the actual problem of the movie or is it just something that highlights the cracks in the facade of the boarding school (there’s constant references to losing money, girls being withdrawn or behind on their tuition, especially Sara)?
It’s that last one, for me, that seems to be the central...theme, if there is one, of Picnic. This is a movie that delights in having high Australian attempt to impose it’s mores on Australia (there’s so, so many shots of people in Victorian dress having small parties surrounded by wildlife that would cheerfully kill them) as well as attempting to impose order on teenage girls who are becoming women. The disappearances are not even especially that important as they are just that which exposes the problems of this dying society for what they are.
I’ve seen the movie five times at this point, and I’m still comfortable in being unclear as to what actually happens. It’s one of those great movies that you can take multiple ways and it may be all or some of those ways at the same time (but is not infuriatingly indecisive in it’s vagueness).
Minor notes:
This is a great freaking Criterion set. It’s one of those that also contains the novel (which apparently has been out of print in the US for a while), which I always find a really nice touch. There are also:
An extended interview with Weir from the late 1990s.
A new documentary of the making with various actors and producers.
An introduction by film scholar David Thomson.
And my favorite,an on-set documentary by producer Patricia Lovell that features various actors, Pter Weir and Joan Lindsay as she visits the set. Worth seeing if only for Weir’s crazy-ass 1975 sweater.
Also included but I didn’t get to: two essays in the booklet and Weir’s debut film from 1971, Homesdale. The Criterion Collection!
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)
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